Department of Pharmacology Seminar Series
Seminars will be held as usual in the Departmental Seminar Room at 13:00 on Fridays in Full Term. After the talk there will be tea and cake and a chance to talk informally with the speaker.
If anyone wishes to have some time with any speaker before the talk, please contact comms [@] phar.cam.ac.uk in advance.
Schedule for Michaelmas 2025
Friday 10 October, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker: Tuomas Knowles, University of Cambridge
Talk Title: Protein Phase Transitions
Biography: Tuomas Knowles is a British scientist and Professor of Physical Chemistry and Biophysics at the Department of Chemistry and at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. He is the co-director of the Cambridge Centre for Misfolding Diseases and a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
Friday 17 October, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker: Sarah Teichmann, Cambridge Stem Cell Institute
Talk Title: Translating the Human Cell Atlas
Biography: Sarah completed her PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, and was a Beit Memorial Fellow at University College London. She established her research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 2001, where her main discoveries included the finding that protein assembly pathways are stereotypical and conserved. In 2013, she transitioned to the Wellcome Genome Campus, where she became the first and, to date, the only faculty member appointed across both the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. In 2016, she was appointed as the Head of the Cellular Genetics programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and co-founded the Human Cell Atlas initiative. From April 2024, she was appointed chair in Stem Cell Medicine at the University of Cambridge, within the Department of Medicine and the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Additionally, Sarah dedicates part of her time to GlaxoSmithKline and to EnsoCell Therapeutics, the startup company she co-founded. The Teichmann lab focuses on developing and applying cell atlas technologies to understand human tissue architecture, particularly examining how cellular diversity is generated in the immune system and during development.
Friday 24 October, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker: David Hodson, University of Oxford
Talk Title: Interrogating GPCRs from the Single Molecule to the Whole Animal
Biography: David Hodson is the Robert Turner Professor of Diabetic Medicine at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Oxford. Originally a Veterinary Surgeon by training, David undertook postdoctoral studies at the CNRS, Montpellier, before establishing his independent laboratory at Imperial College London as a Diabetes UK RD Lawrence Fellow. The lab is focused on developing and using novel technologies to address challenging problems in cellular metabolism, with translational relevance for patients. We have particular interest in glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP) receptors, two related class B G protein-coupled receptors. Both receptors are involved in the regulation of glucose homeostasis, food intake and inflammation and as such have become major drug targets for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. We are currently seeking to understand where and how GLP-1 and GIP receptors operate within complex tissues such as the pancreas and brain.
Friday 31 October, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker: Natalie Krahmer, Helmholtz Diabetes Center
Talk Title: Elucidating the Cell Architecture of Metabolic Liver Disease via Spatial Proteomics
Biography: Natalie Krahmer is an Emmy Noether Group Leader at the Institute of Diabetes and Obesity, Helmholtz Center Munich. She earned her doctorate in biology in 2011 at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry under the mentorship of Dr. Tobias Walther and completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Matthias Mann, specializing in proteomics and systems biology. Natalie Krahmer’s research explores how cellular architecture adapts to lipid accumulation in metabolic diseases. She has developed advanced multi-omic workflows to map organelle organization in vivo and has applied these tools to make discoveries in lipid droplet biology, metabolic liver disease and adipocyte biology. She has been awarded the 2025 Helmholtz Female Professorship and the 2020 EFSD/Novo Nordisk Future Leader Award.
Friday 21 November, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker: Helen Walden, University of Glasgow
Talk Title: Understanding Parkin’s E3 Ligase Activity
Biography: Helen obtained her BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Bath in 1998. She then moved to the University of St Andrews for her PhD, investigating the structural basis of protein hyperthermostability. In 2001, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee for a postdoc in the newly-established lab of Brenda Schulman at St Jude's Children's Research Hospital. It was here that Helen developed her interest in the mechanisms of ubiquitination, solving the structure of the E1 for Nedd8. In 2005, Helen moved to the Lincoln's Inn Fields Laboratories of CRUK’s London Research Institute (now Francis Crick Institute), to establish her own group. After tenure, Helen moved to the MRC-Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit at the University of Dundee from 2013, and in 2017 relocated her lab to the University of Glasgow as Professor of Structural Biology. Helen was a member of the EMBO Young Investigator Programme from 2011 to 2014, and received the Colworth medal from the Biochemical Society in 2015, and in 2016 she received an ERC Consolidator award.
Friday 28 November, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker: Nikita Gamper, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Leeds
Talk Title: Peripheral Gate in Somatosensory System
Biography: Nikita is a neuroscientist and biophysicist with interests in neuronal communication, intracellular signalling and mechanisms of pain transmission. He graduated in Biology/Biochemistry from the St. Petersburg State University (Russia) in 1995. In 1999 he obtained a PhD in Physiology from the Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry (Russian Academy of Science; St Petersburg, Russia). After postdoctoral work at Tubingen University, Germany (laboratory of Florian Lang; 1999-2001) and at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, USA (Laboratory of Mark Shapiro; 2001-2005) he joined Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds (lecturer: 2005-2011; associate professor: 2011-2014; professor since 2014). In 2011 he accepted a position of Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at the Hebei Medical University (Shijiazhuang, China) where he currently lead a small research group as well. His research (both in Leeds and in Shijiazhuang) is focused on biophysical principles of neuronal communication and on the regulation of ion channels that control or influence excitability of the peripheral ‘pain’ neurons. He is also interested in the modulation of different neuronal ion channels by G protein coupled receptors (GPSRs) and in localised GPCR signalling in sensory neurons.
Friday 5 December, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker: Hugh Robinsion, PDN, University of Cambridge
Talk Title: Ion Channels, Electrical Activity and Energy Consumption in Neuroendocrine Cancer Cells
Biography: Hugh Robinson studied Natural Sciences as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1982. After a year working on cardiac muscle electrophysiology at Rockefeller University and mathematical modelling of neurons at the MIT with Christof Koch, he returned to Cambridge for his PhD, in the lab of Denis Haydon in the Physiological Laboratory, on the gating of single potassium channels. He then moved to Japan for postdoctoral work on synaptic glutamate receptors at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neurosciences (1988-91) and developing multielectrode array technology in the Materials Science Department of NTT Basic Research Laboratories (1991-93). In 1993, he returned to the Physiological Laboratory in Cambridge, firstly as Wellcome Vision Research Fellow, and then from 1996, as University Lecturer, and Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He is currently Professor of Cellular Electrophysiology in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience in the University of Cambridge. He has worked on many aspects of electrical signal integration by neurons, pioneering techniques of nonstationary fluctuation analysis of synaptic currents, and conductance injection (dynamic clamp) to probe the function of populations of ion channels in neuronal activity, and studied biophysical mechanisms of thresholds, synchronisation of firing, and irregular action potential generation in various cortical neuron types. Since 2017, he has focused on understanding the roles of ion channels and electrical signalling in cancer cells, and the emerging field of cancer neuroscience.