Alastair Buchan

Who is Alastair Buchan?

Professor Alastair Buchan is a neurologist and researcher in stroke medicine. His main research interest has always been how to make neuroprotection a reality in the clinic. Since October 2008 he has served as the Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford.

Buchan was educated at Repton School in Derbyshire and graduated in 1980 from his medical studies at the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and Harvard University.

His post-graduate medical training was undertaken with Sir David Weatherall in Oxford. Buchan completed his neurological training in North America, with Henry J.M. Barnett in London, Ontario and in stroke with Fred Plum in New York. Subsequently, Buchan held staff positions as a consultant neurologist in London and Ottawa before becoming the Heart and Stroke Foundation Professor in Stroke Research in Calgary, Alberta in 1995.

During his ten years in Calgary, Buchan built up a team which established a fully comprehensive regional Stroke Programme leading CASES, ASPECTS and FASTER. When he returned to Oxford in 2005 he left Calgary with an Acute Stroke Imaging Centre, an Experimental Imaging Centre and the Clinical Stroke Programme, which facilitate translation of the experimental research work in the laboratory to the clinical setting. For his services, the University of Calgary awarded Buchan an honorary Degrees of Laws in May 2009.