Research Interests

Arjune's primary aim is to revitalise academic epileptology in Oxford. He is interested in cognitive, psychological and psychosocial difficulties in patients with epilepsy. He continues to delineate pathways that may cause neurodegeneration in epilepsy, aiming to develop treatments that may ameliorate both seizures and the co-morbidities that so commonly associate with epilepsy.

Biography

Arjune is Professor of Global Epilepsy at the University of Oxford, Head of the Oxford Epilepsy Research Group and Founding Director of the Centre for Global Epilepsy. His work is wholly multidisciplinary and binds together colleagues and expertise from across the entire University as well as broad international collaboration. Arjune leads the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Epilepsy and, with Professor Charles Newton, is co- Chief Investigator for the NIHR RIGHT Programme – Epilepsy Pathway Innovation in Africa. A principal aim across both of these large global platforms is to deliver culturally contextualised technologies at scale to help in the diagnosis of epilepsy.

Over the past two years, Arjune has also moved into closing the epilepsy treatment gap. He has worked with the World Health Organization to shape revisions to mhGAP and led the work to update the WHO's Essential Medicines List for anti-seizure medications. He is currently collaborating with the WHO to create novel ways to enhance medicines access.

Arjune is determined to ensure equitable and transparent bidirectional working. This has yielded enormous reward and seeded a new generation of researchers in resource limited settings as well as bringing many new UK partners into this space. To further optimal delivery of care, Arjune has worked for several years on guideline development. He is Topic Advisor to the NICE Epilepsy Guidelines, specialist member of the NICE Quality Standards Advisory Committee, appointed to the International League Against Epilepsy Standards and Best Practices Council and theme lead for 'Mortality, morbidity and risk' at the Epilepsy Research Institute.

Closer to home, Arjune's research focuses on how epilepsy intersects with other conditions, notably dementia and psychiatric co-morbidity. He conceived, implemented and completed a pioneering clinical trial of an anti-seizure medication in dementia (ILiAD) and is chief investigator on a range of epilepsy clinical trials (Phase II to IV).

Through all of this, Arjune continues to work actively as a NHS Consultant, running a very busy medical service with responsibility for tertiary/quaternary epilepsy care. He initiated and continues to perform multidisciplinary clinics, examples being 'Epilepsy and learning disability' and 'Epilepsy and employment'. The grounding of his research in clinical care means that all Arjune's work is patient-centred. Pioneering academic developments can, therefore, be rapidly translated into tangible clinical benefit at global scale.

Current Major Grants Awarded

'The immunological basis of pharmacoresistance in epilepsy' PIs: Arjune Sen, Sarosh Irani, Julian Knight. Funder: UCB Pharma £1.3M

'Epilepsy Pathway Innovation in Africa (EPInA)' CIs: Charles Newton and Arjune Sen. Funder: NIHR £4.9M