Credibility Across Sectors

Michael Ashby

Associate Professor in Neuroscience, University of Bristol

Research in the Ashby lab investigates plasticity of the brain, focussing on early life development of synaptic and neuronal circuit function and on how abnormal synaptic biology contributes to neurodegenerative disease.

Using cutting edge fluorescence imaging and photostimulation approaches in mouse and human brain slices and in vivo in mouse models, we have contributed to understanding of emerging synapses in the developing brain and how synaptic turnover shapes ongoing changes in neuronal connectivity. Specific examples include using 2-photon calcium imaging in mouse brain slices to show novel modes of dendritic signalling during synaptic plasticity and in vivo imaging of disruptions to structural synaptic plasticity and neuronal activity in mouse models of neurodegenerative tauopathy. 

Will Gawned

UKRN

Will qualified as a biologist, educator and creative writer, and is an experienced improv theatre instructor and performer. He has worked in University professional services in Australia and the UK since 2000, and with UKRN since 2019 initially in the role of administrator and as community manager since 2023. In his current role he fosters community activity, especially with the Local Network Lead member group, facilitating meetings and events, and leads on the UKRN Ground-Up project. Will is interested in fostering effective human connection for collaboration, the role of reproducibility in performance arts, and games-based approaches to learning.

John Huxter

Associate Director & Cognition Lead , Transpharmation Ltd

John Huxter is Associate Director and Cognition Lead at Transpharmation. John has had more than 25 years of neuroscience experience in both academia and industry, and across diverse therapeutic areas including psychiatric disorders, chronic pain, and neurodegeneration. With a background in both behaviour and electrophysiology (UCL, University of Bristol, Oxford’s MRC Analytical Neuropharmacology Unit), he has led biomarker discovery and assay development efforts at both Pfizer and Eli Lilly before joining Transpharmation in 2020. John is passionate about the translational potential for preclinical neuroscience, and works closely with the Transpharmation teams in the UK, Ireland, Poland and Canada to explore new opportunities for drug discovery and collaboration.

Steven J. West

Head of Histology, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

Steven J. West is the Histology Research Scientist for the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre. In this role, he is developing new tissue clearing and histology protocols, as well as image analysis methods, to contribute to understanding the structural organisation of the central nervous system (CNS). Steven is currently working with the International Brain Laboratory to help develop an activity map of the whole brain during a decision making task, where he will be using serial section 2-photon microscopy and light sheet microscopy with tissue clearing methods. Further interests include mapping CNS regions at the synaptic, dendritic and cellular level, and understanding how the CNS is altered with age.

Prior to joining SWC, Steve completed his DPhil in neuroscience at the University of Oxford, where he studied the impact of peripheral nerve injury on primary somatosensory spinal circuits. During his DPhil, he developed histological labelling protocols and automated stereological image analysis methods for assessing synaptic structures from confocal image stacks. He further pursued a post-doctoral research position in Oxford where he further refined his histological expertise by developing protocols on tissue clearing with immunofluroescence techniques.

Johanna Jackson

Advanced Research Fellow, Imperial College London

Jo Jackson is an Advanced Research Fellow, Alzheimer's Society Dementia Research Leader, the first recipient of the Alzheimer's Society's Carol Jennings Fellowship and a UK DRI Emerging Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute centre at Imperial. Her group takes a multi-‘omic and imaging approach to provide a mechanistic insight into the vulnerability of synaptic components in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). This enables her group to identify and test molecular targets to achieve the vision of therapeutically targeting the synapse in AD.

Dr Jackson completed her PhD at Imperial College and post docs at Lund University and Imperial. She gained extensive experience studying synaptic integration in models of axonal injury and epilepsy. She then joined Eli Lilly where she established an in vivo two-photon imaging platform to characterise synaptic changes and other disease processes in pre-clinical models of AD. Her group was the first to simultaneously image both pre- and post-synaptic components as the pathology prgresses. At Lilly, she co-chaired their Neuroplasticity Drug Discovery platform and proposed ways to therapeutically target the synapse in AD.

Since returning to Imperial, Dr Jackson has led the UK DRI Multi-‘omics Atlas Project; an open resource mapping the cellular pathology of AD. This project has involved establishing a comprehensive multi-'omic atlas characterising the pathology of human Alzheimer's Disease and in cohorts with genetic risk variants. More information can be found at map-ad.org.

Her current work aims to investigate selective vulnerability of pre- vs post-synaptic components and to understand mechanisms of their vulnerability such as protein synthesis or degradation. This will be used to determine the impact of repurposed drugs on these vulnerabilities and finally to validate biomarkers to track synaptic changes through disease or to determine drug efficacy. This allows her group to understand the mechanisms of synaptopathy and, as the loss of synapses closely correlates with cognitive decline in AD, start to develop a synapse-targeting treatment for therapeutic benefit.

Her work is supported by the Hamilton Neal Fund, the Alzheimer's Society, the Brightfocus Foundation, the Rosetrees Trust and the UK Dementia Research Institue which is principally funded by the Medical Research Council.

Dr Jackson is also the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Lead for the Department of Brain Sciences.

Pranab Kalita

Head of Clinical Development, Experimental Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim

Dr. Pranab Kalita is the Head of Clinical Development, Experimental Medicine with Global Neuroscience & Mental Health team at Boehringer Ingelheim. He is trained in Medicine, Psychiatry & Public Health and has worked in Clinical Development and Medical Affairs in Psychiatry, Neurology & Respiratory Medicine internationally and with multiple pharmaceutical companies as Pfizer, J&J, Lundbeck, GSK, Haleon and currently at Boehringer Ingelheim.

Georgina MacKenzie

Research Lead, Wellcome Trust

Dr Georgina MacKenzie is Research Lead for the Tissues, Organs and Organisms theme within the Discovery Research team at the Wellcome Trust where she focuses on shaping and developing strategic initiatives across the life sciences and managing large programmes.  A biochemist and neuroscientist by training, Georgina is a graduate of the University of Bath, UK and earned her MRes and PhD from Imperial College London, UK.  She completed postdoctoral training at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts followed by a second postdoctoral position within industry.

Marcus Munafò

Executive Director, The UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN)

Marcus Munafò is Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of Bath. He has a long-standing interest in meta-research, and the organisational factors, incentive structures and working practices that shape researcher behaviour and research quality.

Tatiana Rosenstock

Senior Principal Scientist, Sygnature Discovery

Tatiana Rosenstock has had an exceptional career and has made significant contributions to the field of Neuroscience for 20+ years. Her work has focused on topics such as mitochondrial deregulation, transcription deregulation, and autophagy in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Huntington’s Disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Schizophrenia.  

At Sygnature Discovery, Tatiana is a Senior Principal Scientist overseeing various neuroscience-related projects in different sub-areas such as metabolism (mitochondrial function), biomarkers, microglial function and activation, and neuroplasticity. During this period, she has been working with distinct in-vitro models, named iPSC-derived neurons, primary cortical neurons, Alzheimer`s and Parkinson`s disease fibroblasts, neuroblastomas cell lines, tissue and biofluids from transgenics animal models of Alzheimer`s disease. 

Adam Tyson

Head Research Engineer, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

Adam Tyson is Head Research Engineer and Head of the Neuroinformatics Unit at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre and Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit.

He is interested in the development of open-source and easy to use software for neuroscience, particularly image analysis. Adam is the co-founder and lead of the development of the BrainGlobe Initiative.

Previously he was Scientific Software Lead at the Institute of Cancer Research and Research Fellow in the Margrie Lab. Adam carried out his PhD at King’s College London in the Andreae Lab.

Emily Wheater

Research manager, Wellcome Trust

Dr Emily Wheater is a Research Manager in the Early Career and Career Development Researchers team within Discovery Research at Wellcome. Her focus is on early careers and healthcare professional researchers. Emily initially studied Biochemistry at Imperial College London, and then pursued a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh.