Frances Ashcroft | |
---|---|
Born | Frances Mary Ashcroft 15 February 1952 [1] |
Nationality | British |
Education | Talbot Heath School |
Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) |
Awards | UNESCO award (2012) Croonian Lecture (2013) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physiology [2] |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Calcium electrogenesis in insect muscle (1978) |
Website | www |
Dame Frances Mary Ashcroft DBE FRS FMedSci (born 1952) is a British ion channel physiologist. [4] [2] [5] She is Royal Society GlaxoSmithKline Research Professor at the University Laboratory of Physiology at the University of Oxford. She is a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and is a director of the Oxford Centre for Gene Function. Her research group has an international reputation for work on insulin secretion, type II diabetes and neonatal diabetes. [6] [7] Her work with Andrew Hattersley has helped enable children born with diabetes to switch from insulin injections to tablet therapy. [8] [9] [4] [10]
Ashcroft was educated at Talbot Heath School and the University of Cambridge where she was awarded a degree in Natural Sciences followed by a PhD in zoology in 1978. [11] [12]
Ashcroft then did postdoctoral research at the University of Leicester and the University of California at Los Angeles. [13] Ashcroft is a director of Oxion: Ion Channels and Disease Initiative, a research and training programme on integrative ion channel research, funded by the Wellcome Trust. [14]
Ashcroft's research focuses on ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP)channels and their role in insulin secretion. Ashcroft is working towards explaining how a rise in the blood glucose concentration stimulates the release of insulin from the pancreatic beta-cells, what goes wrong with this process in type 2 diabetes, and how drugs used to treat this condition exert their beneficial effects. [15] Ashcroft has authored a few science and popular science books based on ion channel physiology:
Her work has helped people with neonatal diabetes, a very rare disease, switch from insulin injections to oral drug therapy. [2]
Ashcroft was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999. [19] In 2007 Ashcroft was awarded the Walter B. Cannon Award, the highest honour bestowed by the American Physiological Society. [20] She was one of five 2012 winners of the L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science. [21]
Ashcroft was awarded an honorary degrees of Doctor of the University from the Open University in 2003 and Doctor of Science from the University of Leicester on 13 July 2007. [12]
Ashcroft was awarded the Croonian Lecture by the Royal Society in 2013. [22]
In the 2015 Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) 'for services to Medical Science and the Public Understanding of Science'. [23] She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 1999. [24]
A. S. Byatt's novel A Whistling Woman is half dedicated to Ashcroft. [25]
Ashcroft appeared (as a diner) on MasterChef during the 2011 series,[ citation needed ] along with several other Fellows of the Royal Society.
Insulin is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the INS gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood into liver, fat and skeletal muscle cells. In these tissues the absorbed glucose is converted into either glycogen via glycogenesis or fats (triglycerides) via lipogenesis, or, in the case of the liver, into both. Glucose production and secretion by the liver is strongly inhibited by high concentrations of insulin in the blood. Circulating insulin also affects the synthesis of proteins in a wide variety of tissues. It is therefore an anabolic hormone, promoting the conversion of small molecules in the blood into large molecules inside the cells. Low insulin levels in the blood have the opposite effect by promoting widespread catabolism, especially of reserve body fat.
Beta cells (β-cells) are a type of cell found in pancreatic islets that synthesize and secrete insulin and amylin. Beta cells make up 50–70% of the cells in human islets. In patients with Type 1 diabetes, beta-cell mass and function are diminished, leading to insufficient insulin secretion and hyperglycemia.
Alpha cells(α cells) are endocrine cells that are found in the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. Alpha cells secrete the peptide hormone glucagon in order to increase glucose levels in the blood stream.
Dame Kay Elizabeth Davies is a British geneticist. She is Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. She is director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) functional genetics unit, a governor of the Wellcome Trust, a director of the Oxford Centre for Gene Function, and a patron and Senior Member of Oxford University Scientific Society. Her research group has an international reputation for work on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). In the 1980s, she developed a test which allowed for the screening of foetuses whose mothers have a high risk of carrying DMD.
In molecular biology, the sulfonylurea receptors (SUR) are membrane proteins which are the molecular targets of the sulfonylurea class of antidiabetic drugs whose mechanism of action is to promote insulin release from pancreatic beta cells. More specifically, SUR proteins are subunits of the inward-rectifier potassium ion channels Kir6.x. The association of four Kir6.x and four SUR subunits form an ion conducting channel commonly referred to as the KATP channel.
Kir6.2 is a major subunit of the ATP-sensitive K+ channel, a lipid-gated inward-rectifier potassium ion channel. The gene encoding the channel is called KCNJ11 and mutations in this gene are associated with congenital hyperinsulinism.
Professor Dame Linda Partridge is a British geneticist, who studies the biology and genetics of ageing (biogerontology) and age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Partridge is currently Weldon Professor of Biometry at the Institute of Healthy Ageing, Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, and Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany.
Sir Philip John Randle was a British medical researcher after whom the Randle cycle is named.
The insulin transduction pathway is a biochemical pathway by which insulin increases the uptake of glucose into fat and muscle cells and reduces the synthesis of glucose in the liver and hence is involved in maintaining glucose homeostasis. This pathway is also influenced by fed versus fasting states, stress levels, and a variety of other hormones.
Jonathan Felix Ashmore is a British physicist and Bernard Katz Professor of Biophysics at University College London.
Mladen Vranic, MD, DSc, O.C., O.Ont, FRSC, FRCP(C), FCAHS, Canadian Medical Hall of Fame[CMHF] April 3, 1930 – June 18, 2019, was a Croatian-born diabetes researcher, best known for his work in tracer methodology, exercise and stress in diabetes, the metabolic effects of hormonal interactions, glucagon physiology, extrapancreatic glucagon, the role of the direct and indirect metabolic effects of insulin and the prevention of hypoglycemia. Vranic was recognized by a number of national and international awards for his research contributions, mentoring and administration including the Orders of Canada (Officer) and Ontario.
Sheena Elizabeth Radford FRS FMedSci is a British biophysicist, and Astbury Professor of Biophysics in the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Leeds. Radford is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Molecular Biology.
Patrik Rorsman FRS FMedSci is Professor of Diabetic Medicine at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM), in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
Colin G. Nichols FRS is the Carl Cori Endowed Professor, and Director of the Center for Investigation of Membrane Excitability Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Antony Giuseppe Galione is a British pharmacologist. He is a professor and Wellcome Trust senior investigator in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford.
Charles Nicholas "Nick" Hales (1935–2005) was an English physician, biochemist, diabetologist, pathologist, and professor of clinical biochemistry
Anant B. Parekh is professor of Physiology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.
Donna Elizabeth Davies is a British biochemist and professor of respiratory cell and molecular biology at the University of Southampton. In 2003, Davies was the co-founder of Synairgen, an interferon-beta drug designed to treat patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Garth James Smith Cooper is a New Zealand academic biochemist, and as of 2021 is a full professor at the University of Auckland.
Arthur Henry Weston is emeritus professor at the University of Manchester, where he was previously Leech Professor of Pharmacology from 1989-2011.
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I remember sitting at high table with my friend, Professor Frances Ashcroft, to whom A Whistling Woman is half dedicated.
This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.