David Nield
David Nield is a freelance journalist and contributing reporter for ScienceAlert who covers health and human biology through the lens of cutting-edge science and technology. His work focuses on how new lab findings, experimental treatments, and emerging risks translate into practical questions about disease, brain function, and everyday health. He writes clear, tightly structured pieces that stay close to the data while explaining mechanisms and limits in plain language.
Neurodegenerative Disease and Brain Research
Nield’s ScienceAlert health coverage often centers on the brain, neurodegenerative disease, and how scientists are trying to understand and model these conditions. In his reporting on Alzheimer’s disease, he follows the progression of research from basic mechanisms through potential interventions, including work identifying new molecular triggers and candidate drugs tested in animal models. He also covers studies on how brain tissue is grown and studied in the lab, such as breakthroughs that help scientists produce more realistic human brain models to better trace disease pathways and test treatments. Across these stories he foregrounds what the experiments actually show, the stage of the work, and the gap between controlled lab systems and the complexity of real patients.
Experimental Therapies and Drug Development
A recurring theme in Nield’s health beat is the search for new treatments grounded in unconventional approaches. He reports on experimental drugs for neurological conditions, including compounds that slow disease processes in mice and other models, emphasizing how far such findings are from clinical use. His coverage of work on producing painkillers from rattlesnake venom tracks the full path from unusual biological source through chemical isolation and early testing, showing how researchers move from a striking concept to a potential therapeutic. In these pieces he strips away hype and focuses on where the research sits in the pipeline, the type of study, and the practical hurdles between a promising mechanism and an approved medicine.
Environment, Materials, and Health Risks
Nield also reports on how environmental exposures and modern materials may affect neurological and broader health outcomes. His writing on microplastics and Parkinson’s disease explains how plastic particles accumulate in the body, what new reviews and studies suggest about their potential to fuel neurodegeneration, and where the evidence is still developing. He uses these stories to link lab findings with everyday contexts, connecting specialized terms like microplastics or environmental toxins to familiar products and habits without overstating the certainty of causation. This strand of his work positions health research within a wider picture of pollution, consumer goods, and long-term risk.
Science and Technology Reporting Beyond Health
Beyond his health coverage at ScienceAlert, Nield has a long track record writing about science and technology for a range of outlets. He has been reporting on science, technology, gadgets, apps, and the web for more than two decades, and contributes regularly to specialist technology publications that focus on consumer devices and digital services. That broader experience with complex technical subjects shapes his health reporting: he is comfortable unpacking experimental methods, data, and engineering details for a general audience, and he maintains a consistent emphasis on how systems work rather than on personality-led storytelling. The result is health coverage that sits squarely in the intersection of biomedical research and technology, aimed at readers who want straightforward explanations of what new findings do and do not mean for them.
4 more health journalists.
Alex Storey
Alex Storey is a journalist at LBC whose work is driven by specific cases that test professional conduct and accountability in health and the public sector. He covers health as his main beat, focusing on the point where individual decisions by clinicians or officials meet public trust in institutions. His reporting is incident-first and case-led, using concrete episodes to show how rules, ethics and policy work in real life. Recent pieces include a disciplinary case where a nurse was struck off after linking a patient’s cancer to Covid jabs, and coverage of civil servants being “paid to play Grand Theft Auto” as “lived experience” training. Across these stories, he examines how professionals, regulators and officials explain their decisions, and what that reveals about trust, responsibility and the standards expected of people in positions of authority.
Alexandra Thompson
Alexandra Thompson is an assistant news editor focused on health who treats health claims as hypotheses to be tested rather than messages to be repeated. She works at New Scientist, combining editing with frontline reporting on ageing brains, cognitive health, chronic illness, contested treatments and infectious disease. Her beat centres on how neuroscience and psychology intersect with everyday health choices and on how scientific findings translate into real-world outcomes for people living with illness. She examines lifestyle advice, rehabilitation programmes and outbreak guidance against current evidence, clarifying risk without overstating it and giving space to controversy without sensationalising it. Alongside written news she appears in audio and video formats, bringing the same clear, news-driven approach to live discussions and helping shape the daily health agenda while keeping a tight focus on evidence and impact.
Alice Wilkinson
Alice Wilkinson investigates how everyday habits, products and routines shape sleep and long-term wellbeing, using test-driven health features to separate hype from real benefit. She holds a senior role on The Telegraph’s health features team, writing and shaping consumer-focused coverage that blends personal trial with clear expert evidence. Her core beat is sleep as a practical, solvable part of daily life, from detailed comparisons of magnesium supplements to service pieces on how sleeping position affects health over time. She treats supplements as a crowded, over-claimed market that demands careful testing and clear-eyed reporting. Alongside long-form features she writes weekly health desk dispatches on sleep, stress and concentration. Across her work she combines substantial self-testing, specialist insight and plain, unfussy prose to give readers measurable, realistic changes they can make.
Ally Head
Ally Head connects performance-focused fitness reporting with women’s health, sustainability and relationships, using her own endurance training and health history to stress-test trends against expert guidance. She is Senior Health, Sustainability and Relationships Editor at Marie Claire UK, where she shapes the health agenda across training, wellbeing and conscious living and writes and commissions news, topical features and SEO-led long-form pieces. A ten-time marathoner and Boston-qualifying runner, she focuses on structured, realistic training plans, strength and conditioning for women who run, and performance longevity. Her women’s health work centres on hormones, chronic conditions and fact versus fiction wellness claims. She also covers sustainability as conscious living and relationships, mental resilience and lifestyle features, favouring plain language, lived experience, specialist commentary and clear, repeatable routines. She has previously produced similar content for Women’s Health, Stylist, Glamour and Grazia.