Bruce Neal

Bruce Neal is Professor of Medicine at UNSW Sydney and Executive Director of The George Institute Australia. Bruce completed his medical degree at the University of Bristol in the UK in 1990 and worked four years in clinical posts training in general medicine. Prior to taking up his position at the George Institute in 1999 he studied epidemiology at the Clinical Trials Research Unit in Auckland, NZ where he completed his PhD in Medicine. Bruce has played a lead role in growing the George Institute from three individuals based in Sydney in 1999 to a team of more than 700 distributed around the globe. Bruce has been a champion of cardiovascular research at the Institute building a multidisciplinary team of researchers with a global reputation in the field. In parallel to establishing the team in Australia he has played a central role in developing the global reach of the Institute’s research with a focus on low income settings in the Asia-Pacific region.

Bruce has broad-based clinical and pubic heath research expertise with a strong focus on the translation of research findings into enhanced clinical care and better government policies. He has particular experience in the fields of high blood pressure and diabetes and has played lead roles in multiple large-scale clinical trials, most recently of SGLT2 inhibitors. He also has a longstanding interest in the environmental determinants of chronic disease and the potential for changes in the food supply to deliver large, cost-effective and equitable health gains. He is internationally recognized for his work on salt reduction where he leads an ongoing large-scale trial assessing the effects of salt substitution on stroke. He launched the popular FoodSwitch smartphone application to empower healthier consumer food choices, available in Australia and nine overseas jurisdictions.