David Bates trained in Medicine at Downing College, Cambridge and the Middlesex Hospital, London and in Neurology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Former Editor of the International MS Journal and past Chairman of both the MS Forum and the Medical Research Advisory Committee of the MS Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He is Chairman of the Joint Colleges Working Party on the Vegetative State and Criteria for Brain Stem Death and Chairman of the Consensus Conference on the Epilepsies for the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh. His research interests are in vascular disease, coma and the unconscious patient, and in MS. Professor Bates has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, edited three textbooks and contributed chapters to more than 20. His current research involvement is predominantly in clinical trials of novel therapy in MS and in the role of mitochondria in protecting and repairing axons in the more chronic phases of that disease.