Giovanna Mallucci is Centre Director of the UK DRI at the University of Cambridge, where she is the van Geest Professor of Clinical Neurosciences. Her pioneering, paradigm-shifting work on common pathogenic mechanisms in neurodegeneration has been instrumental in changing our approach to understanding and treating dementia.  Her discoveries around the role of the unfolded protein response (UPR) and its pharmacological manipulation in these disorders were hailed as a “turning point in search for medicines to control and prevent Alzheimer’s”. More recently, her lab has pursued the understanding of mechanisms of synapse regeneration to prevent neurodegeneration, which is the focus of her UK DRI research programme.  She is an ERC Consolidator Fellow and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. A practicing neurologist specialising in dementia, she bridges the lab and clinic and has established a new Translational Research Unit within the UK DRI at Cambridge to accelerate translation of basic research findings into patients.