EU flag with hole in shape of UKISTOCK, ANDREJ_KAt a press conference today (March 6), one of the four winners of this year’s Brain Prize, University College London neuroscientist John Hardy, turned attention to the impact of Britain’s impending exit from the European Union on science and healthcare in the country. The expected exodus of healthcare workers from other European countries will strain the ability of the U.K.’s National Health Service to care for the growing number of patients with dementia, Hardy predicts.

As reported in The Guardian, Hardy shares the €1 million prize with Bart De Strooper, also of University College London; Michel Goedert of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K.; and Christian Haass of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, for their discoveries on the mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease.

See “Do Microbes Trigger Alzheimer’s Disease?

“When you go around the hospitals, so many of the geriatricians and neurologists...

Hardy is far from the first to predict dire consequences of Brexit for health and science. Ahead of the 2016 referendum on whether to remain in the E.U., for example, Nature found that 83 percent of researchers favored staying.

Interested in reading more?

The Scientist ARCHIVES

Become a Member of

Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member?