Keith A. Wesnes, BSc PhD FSS CPsychol FBPsS

UBC Practice Leader

Professor Keith Wesnes is the Practice Leader for cognitive function assessment, based in the Goring-on-Thames office of the United BioSource Corporation (UBC).

From 1976 to 1986 Professor Wesnes developed and validated a computer based cognitive assessment system (the CDR System) and established its sensitivity for assessing both improvements and impairments in volunteer and patient populations. In 1986 Professor Wesnes founded Cognitive Drug Research Ltd to offer the System as a service in international clinical trials. The System has become the most widely used automated method in worldwide drug development. In 2009 the CDR System was acquired by the United BioSource Corporation, and is now part of the company’s broad offering to life science companies to facilitate the development and commercialization of their products.

Professor Wesnes graduated with a First-Class BSc Honors in Experimental Psychology from Reading University in 1973, and then from 1973 to 1976 undertook a MRC-funded PhD using nicotine and scopolamine to identify the role of the brain cholinergic systems in human attention. He has held academic positions at Indiana University, Reading University, Guy’s Hospital Medical School, East London University and Bristol University. He currently holds Professorships at Northumbria University (Newcastle, since 1997) and Swinburne University (Melbourne, since 2007).

Professor Wesnes became a Chartered Psychologist in 1988, was made Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 1989 and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1983. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers and chapters, and 9 students have received PhDs under his supervision. He belongs to numerous national and international societies, and regularly sits on specialist advisory boards for various pharmaceutical companies.

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