Name:
Professor Donald Jenkinson HonFBPhS
Organisation:
Year elected:
2015
Primary professional setting:
Academia
After completing a PhD in Biophysics at University College London, Donald Jenkinson was Invited by H O Schild to join the UCL Department of Pharmacology, which he headed from 1983 to 1987. A major research interest has been the calcium-activated potassium channels, their role and pharmacology. His group introduced tubocurarine, dequalinium and apamin for their study. A fruitful collaboration with Prof Robin Ganellin FRS led to the discovery of bis-charged cyclophanes almost as active as apamin but more readily reversible and now widely used as experimental tools. A second interest is in the competitive and indirect variants of drug antagonism. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals, including the Journal of Physiology, British Journal of Pharmacology and Pharmacological Reviews. He has also been concerned with the standardisation of the terms and symbols used in pharmacology, happily now largely achieved under the auspices of IUPHAR.