Frances Ashcroft

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "Template wrapper".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".

Dame Frances Mary Ashcroft (born 1952) is a British ion channel physiologist.[1][2][3] 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.[4][5] Her work with Andrew Hattersley has helped enable children born with diabetes to switch from insulin injections to tablet therapy.[6][7][1][8]

Education

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.[9][10]

Career and research

Ashcroft then did postdoctoral research at the University of Leicester and the University of California at Los Angeles.[11] 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.[12]

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.[13] Ashcroft has authored a few science and popular science books based on ion channel physiology:

  • Ion Channels and Disease: Channelopathies on channelopathic diseases[14]
  • Life at the Extremes: The Science of Survival[15]
  • The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body[16]

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.[17] In 2007 Ashcroft was awarded the Walter B. Cannon Award, the highest honour bestowed by the American Physiological Society.[18] She was one of five 2012 winners of the L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science.[19]

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.[10]

Ashcroft was awarded the Croonian Medal and Lecture by the Royal Society in 2013.[20]

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'.[21] She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 1999.[22]

A. S. Byatt's novel A Whistling Woman is half dedicated to Ashcroft.[23]

Personal life

Ashcroft appeared (as a diner) on MasterChef during the 2011 series,Script error: No such module "Unsubst". along with several other Fellows of the Royal Society.

References

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

  1. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ a b Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  3. ↑ Template:Scopus id
  4. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". Template:Closed access
  9. ↑ Template:Cite thesis
  10. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ 1999, Academic Press, Template:ISBN
  15. ↑ 2000, HarperCollins, Template:ISBN
  16. ↑ 2012, W. W. Norton and Company, Template:ISBN
  17. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Template:Webarchive

    Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".Script error: No such module "London Gazette util".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".

Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Template:CC-notice

Template:FRS 1999 Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "http://debianws.lexgopc.com/wiki143/index.php?title=Frances_Ashcroft&oldid=3986917"