Frances Ashcroft
British geneticist and physiologist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dame Frances Mary Ashcroft (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]
15 February 1952[1]
Croonian Lecture (2013)
Dame Frances Ashcroft | |
|---|---|
| Born | Frances Mary Ashcroft 15 February 1952[1] |
| 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 |
Education
Ashcroft was educated at Talbot Heath School and the University of Cambridge where she was awarded a BA degree in Natural Sciences followed by a PhD degree in zoology in 1978.[11][12]
Career and research
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:
- Ion Channels and Disease: Channelopathies on channelopathic diseases[16]
- Life at the Extremes: The Science of Survival[17]
- The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body[18]
Her work has helped people with neonatal diabetes, a very rare disease, switch from insulin injections to oral drug therapy.[2]
Honours and awards
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 Medal and 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]
Personal life
Ashcroft appeared (as a diner) on MasterChef during the 2011 series,[citation needed] alongside several other Fellows of the Royal Society.
