Epilepsy

Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic brain diseases, affecting 1 in 100 people in the UK, with 80 new patients diagnosed every day.

One-third of people with epilepsy do not fully respond to treatment, and epilepsy medications can have substantial adverse effects. This gives rise to urgent and unmet healthcare and research needs to create safer and more powerful therapies.

Epilepsy is characterised by spontaneous recurrent seizures, which are caused by sudden abnormal and intense bursts of brain activity. Typically, epilepsy medications try to address this pathophysiological mechanism by reducing brain activity. However, one-third of people with epilepsy continue to have seizures. Even with optimal medication profiles, the global dampening of brain activity can be damaging to normal brain functions, such as learning and memory.

Epilepsy medications can also be teratogenic – causing harm to the unborn foetus when taken by mothers with epilepsy. The reasons for this are poorly understood. Crucially, healthcare inequalities also exist, where certain groups and demographics of people with epilepsy have better access to the healthcare they need, and subsequently better outcomes. Our epilepsy research aims to address these critical research challenges.

Key people

Our research

Our research spans the full translational pipeline, all the way from fundamental laboratory-based studies to clinical research and trials. As a result, we are fully equipped to discover new and unknown pathological mechanisms that cause epilepsy, and to design cutting-edge preclinical treatments.

Our pipeline then helps progress these new discoveries towards the clinic, with our clinical researchers ensuring that healthcare needs are met. This means that patient involvement is at the core of our research.