Dr Gashirai Mbizvo MBChB (Hons) MRes (Dis) MRCP PhD

Personal Statement

Dr Gashirai Mbizvo is an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer at The University of Liverpool, and ST7 Specialist Registrar in Neurology at The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.

Dr Mbizvo has extensive research experience using administrative healthcare datasets to study epilepsy, with a focus on mortality and risk prediction modelling. He completed his PhD at The University of Edinburgh, where he undertook a national study of epilepsy-related deaths linking mortality data, hospital admissions, outpatient data, and primary care (the Scottish Epilepsy Deaths Study (SEDS)). This was supervised by Professor Richard Chin and Dr Susan Duncan, and funded by Epilepsy Resarch UK (ERUK) and The Juliet Bergqvist Memorial Fund. His PhD project won multiple awards including Best Platform at the Association of British Neurologists Annual Meeting in 2019 and again in 2022, Best Platform at the International League Against Epilepsy British Chapter 2018, and runner-up at the European Academy of Neurology Virtual 2020 - the largest neurology conference in history, resulting in recommendation of his work in Nature Reviews Neurology. Dr Mbizvo was also invited to present his work at Scottish Parliament . His work has lead to over 30 publications (including in The Lancet and in The Lancet Digital Health) and over 20 national or international presentations. His ERUK blog highlights how such research can change policy and clinical practice.

Dr Mbizvo commenced his NIHR Lectureship in Liverpool in 2022, where his ongoing epidemiology research in epilepsy looks at epilepsy risk, morbidity and mortality globally, supervised by Professor Tony Marson. He is also working closely with Professor Ian Buchan and Professor Gregory Lip.

Prizes or Honours

• Starter Grant for Clinical Lecturers (Academy of Medical Sciences, 2024)
• Charles Symonds Prize: Best platform presentation (Association of British Neurologists Association of British Neurologists, 2022)
• Runner-up presentation in Clinical Neurology (European Academy of Neurology, 2020)
• Charles Symonds Prize: Best platform presentation (Association of British Neurologists, 2019)
• Liversedge Prize 2019 - Best platform presentation (North of England Neurological Association, 2019)
• The John D Matthews Postgraduate Award 2019 (The University of Edinburgh Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences (CCBS), 2019)
• Brain Travel Award (Brain, 2019)
• ILAE Conference Bursary (International League against Epilepsy, 2018)
• ABN Conference Bursary (Association of British Neurologists, 2018)
• Best Oral Platform Presentation Prize (Internationale League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) British Chapter, 2018)
• Best Overall Presentation Prize (Scottish Association of Neurological Sciences, 2017)
• Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) Top Abstract Award (The International Association for the Study of Pain’s CRPS Special Interest Group, 2013)
• Research Grant (Pain Relief Foundation, 2009)

Funded Fellowships