Count Down to WED Conference Saturday, 20 February 2021: Meet Dr. Tom Pollak

We are delighted to spotlight Dr. Tom Pollak from the UK. Thanks to his engagement and research, many more are now getting the help they need.

Dr. Pollak is a NIHR Clinical Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London and a specialty trainee general adult psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. His specialist clinical interest is in neuropsychiatry.

He has set up and co-run a joint multidisciplinary clinic dedicated to the assessment and management of patients with confirmed or suspected autoimmune encephalitis and other central nervous system autoimmune disorders, at King’s College Hospital, London. All patients at this clinic are seen jointly by a neurologist and a psychiatrist, an approach he believes is essential to ensuring the best possible patient care.

At King’s Health Partners they are embarking on a program of neuro-psychiatrically-oriented research into autoimmune encephalitis, with the aim of improving clinical recognition and outcomes for patients. He is particularly interested in characterizing the longer-term psychiatric wellbeing of people with encephalitis.

He has trained in psychology (BA; Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford), medicine (MBBS; King’s College London), clinical psychiatry (MRC Psych; Royal College of Psychiatrists) and clinical neurology (MSc; University College London). In 2015 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship to look at the neuro-immunological basis of psychiatric disease, with a particular focus on the autoantibodies known to cause autoimmune encephalitis.

In his current work he is using neuroimaging and neuro-immunological methods to characterize the significance of autoantibodies to neuronal surface antigens in early psychosis. His other research interests include the role of infections in psychiatry, glutamatergic abnormalities in psychosis and organic presentations in clinical neuropsychiatry.

We invite you to register today for what promises to be just one of the fascinating presentations of the conference.