Professor Tom Solomon CBE FRCP FMedSci

Professor Tom Solomon

 

Professor Tom Solomon is Professor of Neurology at the University of Liverpool, Director of The Pandemic Institute and of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, Vice President (International) of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and Academic Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians of London.

 

Brought up in Manchester, he studied medicine at Wadham College, University of Oxford, before undertaking a PhD on central nervous system infections in Vietnam with a Wellcome Trust Advanced Training Fellowship. He had a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship and a Medical Research Council Senior Clinical Fellowship before becoming Chair of Neurological Science at the University of Liverpool in 2007. In 2010 he was appointed founding Director of the University of Liverpool’s new Institute of Infection and Global Health. In 2014 he was made Director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, which played critical role’s in the UK response to the Ebola, Zika and COVID-19 public health emergencies. He sat on the UK Government’s Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens, and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Expert Working Group on Covid-19 vaccines. In 2021 he became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was appointed as its Vice President (International) later that year. He was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in The Queen’s birthday honours List 2021. 

​

He has been a member of council at the Royal College of Physicians of London since 2019, initially as elected councillor (2019-22), then censor (2022-24) then Academic Vice President (from August 2024). In this role he oversees the work of the college's Communications, Policy and Research Directorate. 

 

Professor Solomon heads the multi-disciplinary Liverpool Brain Infections Group, which works to reduce the global burden of neurological disease caused by infections, supported by more than £50 million in research funding. The group has played a major role in the control of Japanese encephalitis across Asia and studies encephalitis, meningitis and other UK brain infections through the BrainInfectionsUK.org portfolio, which Professor Solomon leads. The group has major programmes on neurological Covid-19 disease in the UK and globally.  

 

Professor Solomon is an also honorary Consultant Neurologist at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. He is an enthusiastic teacher, establishing the annual Liverpool Neurological Infectious Diseases course in 2007, which has now trained more than 1000 doctors from 37 countries. His awards include the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Vincenzo Marcolongo Memorial Lectureship (2003), the Royal College of Physicians' Linacre Lectureship and triennial Moxon Medal (2014) and the Wolfson Memorial Lecture, University of Cape Town, (2020). 

 

Professor Solomon is a strong supporter of women in science, publishing on this in The Guardian. He is also a passionate Science Communicator, engaging the public through many newspaper articles, TV and radio appearances. During the coronavirus pandemic he has appeared on BBC TV’s Newsnight, Question Time, and as a regular guest on BBC Breakfast. He won a Guinness World Record for running the fastest marathon dressed as a doctor (2010), and another for his Sci-Art project The World’s Biggest Brain. His popular science book Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine was published in 2016, followed by a linked family show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2017. His 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Covid for Kids, received 5-star reviews including coverage in The Times, Time Out (“One of the Top Ten Shows at the Fringe”), The Scotsman, and The Daily Mail (“If you only have 24 hours in Edinburgh… Covid for Kids is a cracker!”). He hosts the Scouse Science Podcast, and tweets @RunningMadProf. 

​

​