Professor Richard Knight FRCP(E)
National CJD Surveillance Unit, Edinburgh
Chair of the CJD Support Network Committee
Professor Richard Knight received his BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University in 1972, his medical degree in 1977, his postgraduate medical qualification in 1980 and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1993.
Professor Knight is presently serving as Director of the UK National CJD Surveillance Unit and has a Personal Chair in Clinical Neurology at the University of Edinburgh with an Honorary Consultant Clinical Neurology post in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Professor Knight spends approximately 50% of his time divided between CJD Surveillance and research and 50% devoted to clinical services and teaching. He has authored and co-authored many CJD related papers related to sporadic, variant, genetic and iatrogenic forms of the illness.
Professor Knight also has a long involvement with CJD lay and charity organisations, currently being Chair of the UK National CJD Support Network Management Committee and an invited Friend and Advisory to the CJD International Support Alliance.
Professor Simon Mead
Consultant Neurologist and Clinical Lead of the NHS National Prion Clinic
Professor of Neurology and Deputy Director of the MRC Prion Unit at UCL
UK CJD Support Network Committee Member
After medical training at Cambridge and Oxford Universities and a PhD in the genetics of prion diseases at Imperial College London, Simon Mead is a Professor of Neurology and Clinical Lead of the UK National Prion Clinic based at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Also working at the UK Medical Research Council’s Prion Unit, his research interests include clinical studies of CJD or prion disease patients, the discovery of genetic factors that cause or influence prion disease and the development of treatments for prion disease based on antibodies.
Dr Nick Cutfield
Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago
Consultant Neurologist and Clinical Lead at Dunedin
Director, National CJD Registry, New Zealand
Nick has worked as a consultant neurologist since 2009. He is the clinical director of neurology at Dunedin Hospital, and a clinical senior lecturer at the University of Otago, where he directs the NZ Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Registry and the Dunedin Dementia Prevention Research Clinic.
He diagnoses and manages all types of adult neurological diseases and problems.
Some of these conditions are blackouts and seizures, multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory conditions, tremors, Parkinson’s disease, migraine and headaches.
He did research and training in vestibular (balance) and eye movement disorders in London and is currently involved in research developing early tests for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Dr Alastair Murray, BSc, MBChB, FRCPA
Consultant anatomical pathologist, Canterbury Health Laboratories, Christchurch Hospital
Consultant anatomical pathologist at Canterbury Health Laboratories, Christchurch Hospital, since 2003.
In 2019 I undertook a six week sabbatical at the Western General Hospital and the UK CJD Unit, Edinburgh, supervised by neuropathologist Prof Colin Smith, and which was supported by the grant from the Neurological Foundation NZ.
Dr Andrew Chancellor MD, FRACP, FRCP
Neurologist, NZCJD Registry
Dr Chancellor graduated from Auckland University Medical School and trained in Internal Medicine and Neurology, at Auckland Hospitals.
Post graduate work in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh 1989-1993 was at the height of the BSE/‘mad-cow’ epidemic; ten years later, a year as locum consultant neurologist in Edinburgh coincided with the UK’s peak incidence of variant CJD.
His doctorate (MD, University of Auckland 1992), studied aspects of motor neuron disease – working with the Scottish Motor Neuron Disease Register. He was awarded fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (London) in 2004.
Dr Chancellor has worked as a general neurologist at Tauranga Hospital since 1994, where he established the Bay of Plenty Multiple Sclerosis clinic and in private practice. His publications reflect eclectic interests as a ‘jobbing’ clinical neurologist.
Dr Chancellor is an Honorary Lecturer, University of Auckland and senior examiner with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He was the convener of the popular annual NZ course in neurology for FRACP candidates and latterly, as a participating tutor – this course will celebrate 30 years of pedagogy in 2026. Dr Chancellor is a long-serving member of the editorial board of ‘Practical Neurology’ (BMJ Press). Over the last two decades Dr Chancellor has assisted the NZCJD Registry team with its annual report of incident cases.
Dr David Abernethy
Neurologist
I was born in Whakatane. Educated in Auckland and at Medical School at Otago. General Medicine and Neurology trainee in Wellington followed by 3 years of research into the biology pf peripheral nerve with PK Thomas at the Royal Free hospital.
Consultant neurologist and Senior lecturer in Neurology OUW from 1990 to 2020. In recent years I have become increasingly interested in medical history, particularly regarding NZ neurologists. Dick Hornabrook was my mentor, and through him I met Carlton Gajdusek in the late 1980s.
Dr Katherine Neas
Clinical Geneticist & National Clinical Director, Genetic Health Service NZ
Kate Neas is a clinical geneticist and National Clinical Director of Genetic Health Service NZ. She trained in medicine at Otago University, and completed her post graduate training in Paediatrics in Wellington and London and Clinical Genetics in Sydney. Kate is lucky to work with an expert team of geneticists and genetic counsellors across NZ, and to have a broad range of clinical interests.