Name:
Professor Susan Wonnacott FBPhS
Organisation:
University of Bath
Year elected:
2021
Primary professional setting:
Professor Emeritus, The University of Bath; previously Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Biology & Biochemistry, Bath 2000-2021. Following an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from UCL (1971) and MSc in Neurochemistry (1972) and PhD (1975) from the Institute of Psychiatry (now the IoPPN, part of KCL), she moved to the University of Bath as a postdoc in 1978 and began a long career in pursuit of nicotinic receptors. She was awarded personal research fellowships from The Mental Health Foundation, The Tobacco Advisory Council and the MRC, before taking up a lectureship at Bath in 1991, with promotion to Reader in 1994 and a Chair in 2000. From 2010-2017 she was Associate Dean for Postgraduate Studies. Her research into neuronal nicotinic receptors established the presynaptic localisation and cellular mechanisms of nicotinic receptors in the CNS, supported by productive collaborations with medicinal chemists for the development and characterisation of novel ligands. She has served the British Journal of Pharmacology as Editor (1996-99; 2009-12) and Senior Editor (2012-18) and is currently a Reviews Editor for the journal.