Professor Neil Poulter qualified at St Mary’s Hospital, London, in 1974, following which he trained in General Medicine. He then spent 5 years in Kenya co-ordinating a collaborative hypertension research programme at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories in Nairobi.
On his return to the UK in 1985 he gained an MSc in Epidemiology with distinction at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Following this he was Co-PI of the WHO Oral Contraceptive case-control Study at University College London Medical School.
In 1997 he was appointed Professor of Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine at Imperial College London, where he is currently co-Director of the International Centre for Circulatory Health and Director of the Imperial Clinical Trials Unit. He is an Honorary Consultant Physician and Epidemiologist at the Peart-Rose (CVD Prevention) Clinic based at Hammersmith Hospital, London, where he is actively involved in the treatment of patients with hypertension and related problems.
He was President of the British Hypertension Society from 2003-2005 and was the President of the International Society of Hypertension from 2016-2018. In 2008, he was elected as one of the Inaugural Senior Investigators of the NIHR and also elected as a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2009.
He has contributed chapters to several major textbooks and published over 600 papers in peer-reviewed medical journals, including co-authoring several sets of national and international guidelines. Professor Poulter was identified as being among the top 1% most cited academics in clinical medicine in 2014 (Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher report) and among the top 0.1% most cited researcher between 2008-2018 (Web of Science Group Highly Cited Researcher 2019 and 2020 report).
He has played a senior management role in several international trials including the ASCOT, ADVANCE, EXSCEL, DEVOTE LEADER and CREOLE trials; other research activities include the optimal investigation and management of essential hypertension and dyslipidaemia; the association between birth weight and various cardiovascular risk factors; the cardiovascular effects of exogenous oestrogen and progesterone; the prevention and aetiology of type 2 diabetes and abdominal aortic aneurism; and ethnic differences in cardiovascular disease. He is the Chief Investigator of the May Measurement Month, an annual global blood pressure screening campaign initiated by the International Society of Hypertension.
