Professor Melissa Bowerman, Professor of Neuromuscular and Skeletal Disorders, will present her lecture entitled Building a research career in rare diseases: serendipity, risk-taking and the power of patient voices at 6pm in the Denise Coates Building (SIHLG0.30).

Professor Bowerman (she/her) is a Professor of Neuromuscular & Skeletal Disorders at the Keele University School of Medicine, a Group Member of the Wolfson Centre for Inherited Neuromuscular Disease in Oswestry and lead of the Keele University Neuroscience & Neurology research group.  

She is also a member of the Future Neurology, Gene Therapy and Frontiers Neurodegeneration editorial boards, a member of the Replacing Animal Research Scientific Advisory Panel, a member of the SMA Europe SMAcademy Advisory Board, a member of the International Consortium to Classify Ageing-Related Pathology (ICCARP), a member of the North Staffordshire Medical Institute (NSMI) Research Awards Committee and the vice-chair of SMA Europe Scientific Advisory Board.

She completed her Ph.D. (2006-2012) in Dr Rashmi Kothary's laboratory (Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI)/University of Ottawa, Canada) where she held a CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best doctoral award and received the OHRI Dr. Ronald G. Worton Researcher in Training Award. She then joined Dr Cedric Raoul's laboratory at the Institut des Neurosciences de Montpellier in France as an EMBO Long-Term Fellow (2012-2014). From 2014-2016, she was a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Oxford in Professor Matthew Wood's group.  

In October 2015, she was the recipient of a Junior Research Fellowship at Somerville College, University of Oxford (2015-2017).  In January 2016, she was awarded an SMA Trust Career Development Fellowship at the University of Oxford. She joined the School of Medicine at Keele University as a Lecturer in October 2017, followed by promotions to Senior Lecturer in 2022 and Professor in 2025. 

A drinks reception will be held in the Denise Coates Building from 5pm.

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