David Bates trained in Medicine at Downing College, Cambridge and the Middlesex Hospital, London and in Neurology in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA. 

He is Professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Editor of the International MS Journal, Past Chairman of the MS Forum and of the Medical Research Advisory Committee of the MS Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  He is Past Chairman of the Joint Colleges Working Party on the Vegetative State and Criteria for Brain Stem Death and Chairman of the Consensus Conference on the Epilepsies for the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.

His research interests are in vascular disease, coma and the unconscious patient and predominantly in multiple sclerosis.  He has published more than 150 peer reviewed papers, edited three textbooks and contributed chapters to more than 40. 

His current research involvement is in clinical trials of novel therapy in multiple sclerosis, cost effectiveness of disease modifying therapy, and the role of mitochondria in protecting and repairing axons in the more chronic phases of MS.