Peter Kennedy is a world authority on infectious diseases of the nervous system. He trained as a medical doctor, and then a neurologist, in various institutions in London, and holds MD, PhD and DSc degrees and two masters degrees in Philosophy (M.Phil, M.Litt). One of the youngest doctors ever appointed to lead a neurology department in the UK, he has held the Burton Chair of Neurology at Glasgow University since 1987. He is a fellow of both the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and is the co-editor of two textbooks on neurological infections and has published more than 150 scientific papers in learned journals. He became enamoured with Africa as a medical student on elective in Zambia in the 1970s, and has visited 17 times since. Now part of a major international effort to increase awareness of and funding for research into sleeping sickness, he is one of only a handful of medical doctors currently specialising in the disease and is dedicated to finding a cure.