Dr Marco Brancaccio was elected to the Board of Directors of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (SRBR) in May 2026. The SRBR is a leading international scientific society in the field of chronobiology, the study of biological rhythms.
“This elected leadership role provides an opportunity to contribute to shaping the strategic direction of the field, including scientific programming, community engagement, training, and support for early-career researchers. The appointment further strengthens the visibility of Imperial and UK DRI within the global biological rhythms research community,” said Dr Brancaccio.
Dr Marco Brancaccio is a Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at Imperial and a researcher in the Department of Brain Sciences. His work focuses on the body’s internal clock – the circadian system – and the mechanisms that disrupt it in the early stages of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. His group studies the brain’s “master clock”, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and has shown that astrocytes – cells once thought to play only a supporting role – are central to keeping circadian time. By revealing how these cellular timekeepers work, his research aims to open up new ways to treat sleep and circadian disturbances, and potentially to help slow the onset of dementia.