Charles ffrench-Constant, Professor of Medical Neurology at University of Edinburgh, combines expertise both as a neuroscientist and clinical geneticist and his reputation is international. He has made fundamental and sustained contributions that underpin much contemporary research in developmental and regenerative neuroscience. He identified the adult glial precursor cell, now recognised as one of the major stem cell populations in the adult brain. This key cell determines central nervous system remyelination, a critical observation that has shaped subsequent development of therapeutic strategies for myelin repair. |Professor ffrench-Constant has taken on senior leadership roles, demonstrating his unusually broad grasp of neuroscience and, more generally, biomedical sciences that span laboratory to clinical research.