Rate My Professor Andre Strydom

Andre Strydom is Professor in Intellectual Disabilities in the Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. A specialist psychiatrist in intellectual disabilities qualified with MRCPsych, MSc, and PhD, his research centers on ageing-associated conditions in intellectual disability populations, particularly Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline in Down syndrome. He employs neuroimaging techniques such as MRI, EEG, and fNIRS, alongside plasma biomarkers related to inflammation, amyloid, neurodegeneration, and oxidative stress, to track changes across the lifespan. Strydom leads the London Down Syndrome (LonDownS) Consortium, funded by the Wellcome Trust, MRC, NIH, Baily Thomas Fund, and Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, focusing on detailed cognitive phenotyping and biomarker identification. He directs the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Clinical Trials Centre (ND-CTC) in his department, overseeing phase II/III clinical trials for treatments targeting autism, Down syndrome, and Fragile X syndrome. Additionally, he heads King’s College London’s partnership in the NHS England LeDeR programme to investigate and reduce avoidable deaths among people with learning disabilities and autism, and contributes to European efforts like the Horizon21 clinical trial network and the Go-DS21 study on comorbidities.

Strydom holds key leadership positions, including Chair of the Dementia in Intellectual Disabilities Special Interest Group, Past President of the Trisomy 21 Research Society, and member of the Executive Committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Intellectual Disability Faculty. His extensive publication record, exceeding 14,000 citations on Google Scholar, includes landmark papers such as 'Down syndrome' (Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 2020), 'A genetic cause of Alzheimer disease: mechanistic insights from Down syndrome' (Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2015), 'Mental illness, challenging behaviour, and psychotropic drug prescribing in people with intellectual disability: UK population based cohort study' (BMJ, 2015), and 'Perspectives on ethnic and racial disparities in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias' (Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 2019). These works have shaped clinical trial design, health inequality interventions, and understanding of multiple morbidities in neurodevelopmental disorders. He is also an investigator in the NIH-funded TRC-DS trial-ready cohort for older adults with Down syndrome.