Dr David Menassa
The Saïd Foundation is delighted to announce that Lebanese alumnus Dr David Menassa has won the Foundation’s 2026 Alumni Achievement Prize. The prize recognises an individual who has made a significant contribution to the development of their field of research and the Levant region.
Dr Menassa is a neuroscientist whose research focuses on understanding how the brain is affected in developmental conditions such as autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, and intellectual disability, as well as in diseases of ageing such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. In particular, his work centres on microglia, the immune cells of the brain, which are increasingly recognised as important in the treatment of these conditions. Key examples of his work are studies on human microglial development and the co-development of tools for neuropathology such as DeepCellMap, which use deep learning and spatial statistics to map cellular organisation in human tissues.
Dr Menassa is currently setting up his own independent research programme and he is a lecturer of neuroscience at the Queen’s College, University of Oxford. He was recently invited by the Nobel Assembly and the organising committee to speak on human microglial development at the Nobel Forum in May 2026, which focused on microglia in health and disease.
Dr Menassa has maintained a strong commitment to ensuring that this expertise benefits Lebanon and the wider region. This has been through mentoring students and early-career researchers, supporting the recruitment of talent, encouraging educational exchanges, and through efforts to identify funding opportunities to support the disability sector, including work with the St Dominique centre at the La Croix Psychiatric hospital in Beirut. In addition, Dr Menassa is active in improving the public understanding of complex biomedical research and supporting accurate media reporting.
Dr Menassa was supported by the Saïd Foundation to pursue an MPhil in Biological Science at the University of Cambridge in 2008/2009, the start of a research career which has made him today, in the words of Professor Laura Parkkinen, the Director of the Oxford Brain Bank, “without doubt, one of the most outstanding translational neuropathologists of his generation”.
The prize was formally announced at the Saïd Foundation’s annual lunch, held on 6th June at One Great George Street in London. The award medal was presented to Dr Menassa by Mrs Nadine Zakaria, Trustee of the Saïd Foundation.
Watch this video in which Dr Menassa talks about his remarkable work.