Prof Wharton is a medical doctor specialising in neuropathology. He was appointed as a senior lecturer in neuropathology in Edinburgh after postgraduate training in Cambridge. He was appointed to Sheffield University and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals in 2001 and is now emeritus professor and consultant in neuropathology. His research work has been based at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neurosciences (SITraN), where he has focused on neurodegenerative diseases and the pathological basis of dementia. Much of his work has been in collaboration with the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (CFAS), using its brain donation cohort. This resource is representative of the ageing UK population and allows an unbiased study of how different pathological lesions are related to dementia. Areas of focus have included the roles of classical neuropathological lesions, age-related cell injury mechanisms, supporting cells such as astrocytes, and how different pathologies may combine. His current research is focused particularly on the contribution of vascular disease to dementia and how this may interact with Alzheimer’s type neuropathology.