Professor Clive Holmes is Professor of Biological Psychiatry within Medicine at the University of Southampton with a focus on research on the biological factors that alter the clinical course of Alzheimer’s Disease and other related chronic neurodegenerative conditions but with a focus on the role of inflammation. This includes a better understanding of the factors that determine the rate of cognitive decline and the development of neuropsychiatric features.

Professor Holmes also leads a clinical trials unit that examines the effects of pharmacological interventions of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related conditions. He has had a key role in developing a better understanding of immunomodulatory drugs in Alzheimer’s disease including the role of drugs such as Etanercept that target systemic innate immunity.

Professor Clive Holmes was appointed to the Chair of Biological Psychiatry in 2005. He graduated with a first class honours degree in biology from the University of Sussex in 1981 and then went on to study medicine at the University of Leicester; graduating in 1987. He trained in general psychiatry at Guy’s Hospital, London with a two year additional placement as a visiting research fellow in neurochemistry at the Institute of Neurology, London. Following this placement he undertook higher training as a Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry before completing his PhD on the genetics of the neuropsychiatric features of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2001.

He held a post as a Senior Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Southampton before being promoted to his current appointment. He is an honorary consultant in Old Age Psychiatry at Southern Health Foundation Trust.