Paul Wicks, Ph.D., is Vice President of Neuroscience at Sano Genetics, which combines genetic testing, patient recruitment, and long-term engagement to accelerate precision medicine. Paul is the architect of “Light the Way”, which offers those at risk of neurodegenerative conditions such as ALS no-cost access to online genetic education, counselling, and testing. The platform helps connect gene-positive individuals with clinical research opportunities and provides de-identified data and support services to the life sciences industry. In addition to providing much-needed resources for a typically overlooked population, a major focus for Light the Way will be building equitable, sustainable and transparent funding partnerships with key stakeholders to drive the programme beyond proof of concept and maximise its impact for patients and their families.

Previously, Paul was an independent consultant and before that he led innovation at PatientsLikeMe. Paul has over 200 peer-reviewed publications including work in patient registries, decentralized clinical trials, patient-reported outcomes, and applications of medical AI. He has sat on the editorial boards of the BMJ, BMC Medicine, JMIR, Digital Biomarkers and The Patient. His Ph.D. at the Institute of Psychiatry (King’s College London) explored cognition and neuroimaging in genetic subtypes of ALS, with a postdoc in psychological consequences of Parkinson’s disease. His work has been profiled by the BBC, NPR, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. In 2011 he was awarded MIT Technology Review’s TR35 “Humanitarian of the Year” award, recognized as a TED Fellow in 2012, and joined the inaugural FLIER Program at the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2019.