ISTM

In my PhD (Bristol University, 1983) I used ion-sensitive microelectrodes to investigate pH regulation in snail neurones, supervised by Dr RC Thomas. I was awarded a Royal Society Exchange Fellowship to work in Paris (ENS), mainly with Dr Alain Marty on the muscarinic response in rat lacrimal glands, but also did some single channel work and a characterisation of a novel calcium-activated chloride current. I then switched direction towards hearing and the cochlea, doing a postdoc in Denver (UCHSC) with Dr Paul Fuchs following a short period in Bristol. We investigated the electrical resonance mechanism in chick cochlear hair cells. I next investigated the hair cell transduction mechanism in turtles, working with Andrew Crawford and Robert Fettiplace in Cambridge. In 1990 I became a temporary lecturer in Physiology, Bristol, and two years later was awarded a Wellcome Trust postdoctoral fellowship to investigate the mechanism of efferent inhibition in cochlear outer hair cells. This has been my principal research area ever since. I was appointed as a lecturer on the Neuroscience course at Keele in its first year, 1996, and became course director in 2002. I was member of the editorial board of the Journal of Physiology between 2004 and 2011. I am currently a member of Council of the Physiological Society, I also chair the Membership and Grants Committee and I am on the Editorial Board of Physiology News.

My research area relates to hearing and the cellular mechanisms involved. I am particularly interested in the outer hair cells of the cochlea, and how they amplify the movements within the cochlea induced by sound. This mechanism provides us with our sensitive hearing - without it we'd have to shout! The outer hair cells are controlled from centres in the brain stem, and I am also interested in how this cholinergic efferent pathway works, and how it influences the physiology of the outer hair cells. During development this pathway innervates the inner hair cells and appears to modulate their intrinsic electrical properties, enabling them to “fire” action potentials spontaneously. Of interest is how the efferents alter the cells electrical responses. My main collaborators are Helen Kennedy (Bristol), Robert Fettiplace (Madison) and David Furness (Keele).

• Programme Director (Neuroscience)
• Year 3 tutor for Neuroscience and Human Biology
• LSC-10029 Introduction to Neuroscience
• LSC-10039 Human Physiology and Pathology (module manager)
• LSC-10040 Introduction to Human Physiology (module manager)
• LSC-20027 From Neurone to Brain
• LSC-20052 Nutrition and Energy Balance
• LSC-30005 Neurobiology of Hearing and Vision (module manager)
• LSC-30015 Biology of Disease
• LSC-30020 Neurobiological Basis of Brain Disease
• LSC-30021 Final Year Project for Neuroscience
• LSC-30031 Final Year Project for Human Biology (module manager)