Dame Frances Ashcroft
Honorific prefixProfessor
Birth nameFrances Mary Ashcroft
Birth date15 February 1952 (age 74)[1]
FieldPhysiology[2]
EducationTalbot Heath School
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Workplaces
AwardsUNESCO award (2012)
Croonian Lecture (2013)
Thesis urlhttp://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.448200
Thesis year1978
Websitewww.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/group-leaders/frances-ashcroft

Dame Frances Mary Ashcroft (born 1952) is a British ion channel physiologist.[3][2][4] 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.[5][6] Her work with Andrew Hattersley has helped enable children born with diabetes to switch from insulin injections to tablet therapy.[7][8][3][9]

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.[10][11]

Career and research

Ashcroft then did postdoctoral research at the University of Leicester and the University of California at Los Angeles.[12] 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.[13]

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

  • Ion Channels and Disease: Channelopathies on channelopathic diseases[15]
  • Life at the Extremes: The Science of Survival[16]
  • The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body[17]

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.[18] In 2007, Ashcroft was awarded the Walter B. Cannon Award, the highest honour bestowed by the American Physiological Society.[19] She was one of five 2012 winners of the L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science.[20]

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.[11]

Ashcroft was awarded the Croonian Medal and Lecture by the Royal Society in 2013.[21]

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".[22] She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 1999.[23]

A. S. Byatt's novel A Whistling Woman is half dedicated to Ashcroft.[24]

Personal life

Ashcroft appeared (as a diner) on MasterChef during the 2011 series,[citation needed] alongside several other Fellows of the Royal Society.

References

  1. ^
  2. ^ "Women in Physiology". Static.physoc.org. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  3. ^ Women physiologists : centenary celebrations and beyond. London: The Physiological Society. 2015. ISBN 9780993341007. OCLC 922032986
  4. ^
  5. ^ Ashcroft, F. M.; Harrison, D. E.; Ashcroft, S. J. H. (1984). "Glucose induces closure of single potassium channels in isolated rat pancreatic β-cells". Nature. 312 (5993): 446–448. Bibcode:1984Natur.312..446A. doi:10.1038/312446a0. PMID 6095103. S2CID 4340710
  6. ^ Ashcroft, F. M. & Rorsman, P. (1989). "Electrophysiology of the pancreatic β-cell". Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. 54 (2): 87–143. doi:10.1016/0079-6107(89)90013-8. PMID 2484976
  7. ^ Ashcroft, F. M. (1988). "Adenosine 5'-Triphosphate-Sensitive Potassium Channels". Annual Review of Neuroscience. 11: 97–118. doi:10.1146/annurev.ne.11.030188.000525. PMID 2452599
  8. ^ "Frances Ashcroft talks to ReAgent about career advice for scientists". reagent.co.uk. 11 June 2014.
  9. ^ Ashcroft, Frances M.; Harrison, Donna E.; Ashcroft, Stephen J. H. (1984). "Glucose induces closure of single potassium channels in isolated rat pancreatic β-cells". Nature. 312 (5993): 446–448. Bibcode:1984Natur.312..446A. doi:10.1038/312446a0. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 6095103. S2CID 4340710
  10. ^ Ashcroft, Frances Mary (1978). "Calcium electrogenesis in insect muscle" (PhD). copac.jisc.ac.uk. University of Cambridge. OCLC 500372918
  11. ^ "Oration for Professor Frances Ashcroft by Professor Gordon Campbell. On the occasion of being awarded Doctor of Science summer 2007". le.ac.uk. University of Leicester. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
  12. ^ "Frances Ashcroft, Professorial Fellow in Physiology". Trinity College, University of Oxford. 2014. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  13. ^ "Welcome to Oxion". Oxion: Ion Channels and Disease Initiative, Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and MRC Hartwell. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  14. ^ "Frances Ashcroft — GLAXOSMITHKLINE Royal Society Professor". Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford. 2015. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  15. ^ 1999, Academic Press, ISBN 0120653109
  16. ^ 2000, HarperCollins, ISBN 0141046538
  17. ^ 2012, W. W. Norton and Company, ISBN 0006551254
  18. ^ Anon (1999). "Dame Frances Ashcroft DBE FMedSci FRS". royalsociety.org. London: The Royal Society. Retrieved 6 July 2012. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies 2016-11-11 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ "Oxford physiology professor earns APS' Walter B. Cannon Award". American Physiological Society. 27 April 2007. Archived from the original on 26 March 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2015. – via EurekAlert!
  20. ^ "Ashcroft receives L'oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science". ox.ac.uk. 8 November 2011. Archived 8 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
  21. ^ "Croonian Lecture—List of lecturers: 21st century". Royal Society. Archived from the original on 14 July 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
  22. ^ No. 61256. 13 June 2015. p. B8.
  23. ^ "Professor Dame Frances Ashcroft - The Academy of Medical Sciences". Acmedsci.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 21 June 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  24. ^ Newman, Jenny & Friel, James (2003). "An interview with A. S. Byatt". Cerles Review. Retrieved 11 September 2010. I remember sitting at high table with my friend, Professor Frances Ashcroft, to whom A Whistling Woman is half dedicated.