Malcolm Macleod is Professor in Neurology and Translational Neuroscience at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh. After training in Internal Medicine his PhD concerned the neuroprotective actions of FK506 and post-doctoral work in the Seckl lab defined a neuroprotective role for increased expression of the mineralocorticoid receptor. During a pivotal sabbatical year with Donnan at the National Stroke Research Institute in Melbourne he began an involvement with stroke clinical trials, and it was in an effort to identify suitable drugs for such clinical trials that he began to develop techniques to allow the systematic review and meta-analysis of data from animal studies.