Professor Craig Anderson

My Expertise

Craig Anderson is an international authority on the causes, treatment and management of stroke, and other aspects of cardiovascular disease, who has sustained a research program that uniquely links clinical medicine and public health, and involves multidisciplinary teams in many countries, particularly those in low-middle income regions, over 20 years. He has developed a global research program of international randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and population/registry research that has generated high quality (i.e. patient-centred outcomes) and widely applicable (i.e. multicentre, pragmatic design, broad inclusion criteria, conduct in a range of health care settings) evidence that has had considerable influence on guidelines, and decision-making by health care providers and policy makers, across the world. He has initiated, led and been instrumental in analysis and reporting of research involving a variety of RCT designs, from conventional parallel group individual RCT (open and double-blind) to stepped-wedge and cross-over cluster RCTs.

Keywords

stroke

clinical neurology

neurosciences & neurology

epidemiology

cardiovascular diseases

public health

clinical medicine

consumer and community engagement (cce)

Fields of Research (FoR)

Neurology and neuromuscular diseases, Clinical sciences

Biography

Professor Craig Anderson is Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, and is a clinical academic neurologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia. He is Executive Director of The George Institute China at Peking University Health Science Center in Beijing, China.

Craig holds specialist qualifications in clinical neurology and geriatrics, a PhD in medicine and...view more

Craig holds specialist qualifications in clinical neurology and geriatrics, a PhD in medicine and epidemiology from The University of Western Australia, and is a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia. He is a past President of the Asia Pacific Stroke Organisation and the Stroke Society of Australasia, and is a member of several specialist societies and an editor for the Cochrane Stroke Group. He has published widely on the clinical and epidemiological aspects of stroke, cardiovascular disease and aged care, and has led several large-scale investigator-initiated epidemiological and clinical trials that have had a major influence on clinical practice guidelines for stroke treatment and prevention.

My Grants

Since 2012:

2012 AUD$4,186,552 (5 years) NHMRC Project Grant 1020462. Anderson C, Chalmers J, Lindley R, Arima H, Wang J, Levi C. Enhanced Control of Hypertension and Thrombolysis Stroke Study (ENCHANTED).

AUD$1.2M (4 Years) NHMRC Partnership Grant 1034415. Cadilhac D, Anderson C, Donnan G, Levi C, Thrift A, Middleton S, Lannin N, Faux S, Sundararajan V. Stroke 123: a national initiative to monitor and improve hospital care and health outcomes associated with stroke.

2013 AUD$17,802,750.00 (5 years) NHMRC Program Grant commencing 2014. MacMahon S, Chalmers J, Neal B, Woodward M, Anderson C, Patel A, Rodgers A, Perkovic V. Discovery and translation of evidence for new strategies to combat cardiovascular diseases (NHMRC award for top PG team application)

UK£224,955 NIHR CRN Portfolio Development Application Round 8 (Effective Prevention of Cerebral Haemorrhage [EPOCH] PDWG044). Werring D, Anderson C, Al-Shahi Salman R, Bath P, Robinson T, Cipolotti L, Jager R, Sprigg N.

2015 AUD$161,864 HMR+ Implementation Fund, The Healthy Brain Ageing e-health platform: A novel approach for large scale intervention trials addressing vascular and other modifiable risk factors. Naismith S, Valenzuela M, Hickie I, Anderson C, Neal B, Simpson S, Lagopoulos J, Marshall N, Glozier N, Calvo R, Kurrie S, Flood V.

AUD$836,915 (5 years) NHMRC APP1081356 – Senior Principal Research Fellowship (SPRF) Anderson CS.

2017 AUD$24,025,090 (5 years) NHMRC Program Grant commencing 1 January 2019. Neal B, Patel A, Anderson C, Woodward M, Rodgers A, Perkovic V, Chalmers J, Chow C, Lindley R, Jan S. Clinical, public health and policy interventions to combat cardiovascular diseases.

My Qualifications

1976-1982: University of Tasmania

1979: Bachelor of Medical Science

1982: Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery

1989-1996: University of Western Australia

1989-91: Biostatistics IA, Epidemiology I, Epidemiology II, and Clinical Epidemiology Units for Masters in Public Health

1996: Doctor of Philosophy Departments of Public Health and Psychiatry: "The epidemiology of stroke-related disability: frequency, patterns and determinants of care"

My Awards

1982 Kathleen Menzies Travelling Scholarship, University of Tasmania

Fifth year student elective in the Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong

1990 Research Encouragement Award for the best scientific presentation (runner-up), Royal Perth Hospital Medical Research Foundation. "Emotional problems after stroke", presented at the Young Investigators Scientific Meeting

1991 Student Prize in Neuroscience for the best scientific presentation, Australian Brain Foundation (W.A.). "The frequency, aetiology and outcome of stroke in Perth, Western Australia: preliminary results of the Perth Community Stroke Study", presented at the Twelfth Annual Neuroscience Colloquium of W.A.

1992 Young Investigators Award for the best scientific presentation, Stroke Society of Australasia. "What is the true incidence of stroke?" presented at the Third Annual Scientific Meeting

1994 Young Investigators Award for the best scientific presentation, Australian Society for Geriatric Medicine. "Patterns of acute care, rehabilitation and discharge disposition after acute stroke", presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting

1995 Clinical Investigatorship, Sylvia & Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation

2004 Portfolio Grade ‘A’ International, 1997-2002 recognition in the New Zealand Universities review, Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF)

2008 Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Foundation Medal for Excellence in Clinical Research, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia

2008-10 Guest Professor, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Sciences Center, China

2009 Garner Visiting Professor in Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

2012 The High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and the French Society of Arterial Hypertension’s Franco-Australian Exchange Program Grant

2013 Impact Award on Research, Practice and Health, The George Institute for Global Health

2013 Distinguished Professorial Achievement Award, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney

2015 Excellence in Stroke Award, Stroke Society of Australasia

2016 Leadership and Guidance in Stroke as President of APSO, Asia Pacific Stroke Organisation -

2017 Finalist: Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA) Trial of the Year: The Enchanced Control of Hypertension and Thrombolysis Stroke Study (ENCHANTED)
Finalist: ACTA Trial of the Year: The Sleep Apnea in Cardiovascular Events Study (SAVE)
Inaugural Winner: ACTA STInG Excellence in Trial Statistics Award: The Sleep Apnea in Cardiovascular Events Study (SAVE)

2022 Global Team Impact Award, University of New South Wales, Leader for Global Brain Health research program at The George Institute for Global Health

My Research Activities

Craig Anderson’s research on early blood pressure (BP) lowering in acute intracerebral haemorrhage, with results of the pivotal INTERACT2 trial (NEJM 2013) and subsequent meta-analysis and individual patient data pooling analyses, has shifted all guideline recommendations, research (Haemorrhagic Stroke Academic Industry Roundtable; Stroke 2018) and knowledge of prognosis (Lancet Neurol 2018) and BP parameters and outcome (Lancet 2019). He has shown that: low-dose alteplase is a safer thrombolysis treatment in acute ischaemic stroke (NEJM 2017; 14^th International Symposium on Thrombolysis, Thrombectomy and Acute Stroke Therapy, Int J Stroke 2019); task-shifting rehabilitation to family members does not improve recovery from disabling stroke in India (Lancet 2017); the SAVE trial, which he co-led, for treatment of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) was shown to significantly improve the well-being of patients but does not modify the risk of serious cardiovascular events (NEJM 2016; JAMA 2017) leading to a re-evaluation of the use of this treatment; the antidepressant fluoxetine does not improve recovery but leads to increased risk of serious adverse events including fractures, epilepsy and metabolic disturbance after acute stroke (Lancet Neurol 2020); minimally-invasive surgery improves survival but not functional outcome after ICH (MISTIE-III trial, Lancet 2019) leading to a re-evaluation of the role of surgery in this serious type of stroke. More recently he has shown that early intensive BP lowering (systolic target <140mmHg) reduces reperfusion intracranial haemorrhage in thrombolysed patients with acute ischaemic stroke (Lancet 2019) but more intensive BP lowering (systolic target <120mmHg) after successful mechanical thrombectomy reperfusion therapy for patients with large-vessel acute ischaemic stroke worsens functional outcome (Lancet 2022).