Craig S. Anderson

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. Craig Anderson has considerable senior leadership and management experience, leading various clinical, research and professional groups in Australia and overseas. As Executive Director of The George Institute China, he navigated the organisation through a challenging period of changing regulations over the conduct of research and cross-border data transfer laws. He was President of the Asia Pacific Stroke Organisation, which he was pivotal role in establishing, and has recently been elected Vice-President of the World Stroke Organisation in 2022. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. As head of the Global Brain Health program of The George Institute for Global Health, he is responsible for strategic direction and academic oversight a research program involving some 40 staff in Sydney and another 30 in other countries, to determine strategies for the prevention and treatment of dementia, stroke, and other major neurological conditions. 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; 14th 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).