I am a Professor of Neurology and Complex Disease Genetics at King’s College London where I am the Director of the King’s Motor Neuron Disease Care and Research Centre, and a consultant neurologist at King's College Hospital. My research focuses on causes, modifiers and potential treatments for ALS. I am co-Director of the UK MND Research Institute, Programme Chair of the International Symposium on ALS/MND, and a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator. I co-lead the Project MinE international whole genome sequencing initiative in ALS, and the MND Register of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

My work has been recognized by multiple honours, including the Forbes Norris Award from the International Alliance of ALS/MND Associations, the Healey Center International Prize for Innovation in ALS, the Sheila Essey Award from the American Academy of Neurology, and Fellowship of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. I am a Visiting Fellow at the Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science, and Lisa S Krivickas Visiting Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

Please see my Research Staff Profile for more detail.

Key publications

• Shatunov A. 2010. Chromosome 9p21 in sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in the UK and seven other countries: a genome-wide association study. Lancet Neurology. 
• van Rheenen W, Shatunov A et al. 2016. Genome-wide association analyses identify new risk variants and the genetic architecture of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Nature Genetics. 
• Al-Chalabi A. 2014. Analysis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis as a multistep process: a population-based modelling study. Lancet Neurology. 
• Fang T. 2018. Stage at which riluzole treatment prolongs survival in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a retrospective analysis of data from a dose-ranging study. Lancet Neurology. 
• Opie-Martin S. 2022. The SOD1-mediated ALS phenotype shows a decoupling between age of symptom onset and disease duration. Nature Communications. 

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Key collaborators

• Professor Leonard van den Berg, University Medical Center Utrecht
• Professor Orla Hardiman, Trinity College Dublin
• Professor Christopher McDermott, University of Sheffield
• Professor Martin Turner, University of Oxford