Professor Pankaj Sharma is consultant neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Director of the Institute of Cardiovascular Research, Royal Holloway University of London (ICR2UL). He was formally head of Imperial College Cerebrovascular Research Unit (ICCRU) at Imperial College London, and acute stroke services at Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust.

He holds doctorates from both the Universities of Cambridge (Gonville & Caius) and London. 

He is Hon. Medical Director of Different Strokes, a UK national charity which seeks to support young stroke victims, President of the London Cardiovascular Society and was founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Cardiovascular Disease.

A former Dept of Health Senior Fellow, British Heart Foundation Clinician Scientist at Cambridge University and Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Medical School, he has a long-standing interest in the genetics of hypertension, cardio- and cerebrovascular disease. He has published extensively in the field and is an internationally recognised authority on the genetic basis of stroke.

He is the Principal Investigator of the global BRAINS (Bio-repository of DNA in Stroke) - the largest repository of stroke patients from South Asian ancestry. He is also Principal Investigator of BEAST, a global study to understand the genetic basis of cerebro-venous sinus thrombosis (an unusual cause of stroke especially in females).

In 2015 he was named the UK’s top Asian doctor at the annual British Indian Awards. He was awarded an OBE in the 2025 Kings Birthday’s Honours list for services to research in strokes in South Asian people.