School of Life Sciences
 

Jillian Baker

honorary consultant in respiratory medicine and molecular pharmacologist, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

Contact

  • workRoom CS6 The University of Nottingham Medical School
    Queen's Medical Centre
    Nottingham
    NG7 2UH
    UK
  • work0115 82 30085
  • fax0115 82 30081

Biography

After obtaining my medical degree from the University of Nottingham, I completed my Junior doctor training in Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham City Hospital and Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. I then began Specialist Registrar training in Respiratory Medicine in Nottingham and was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Training Fellowship to do a basic science PhD in Pharmacology in Nottingham under the supervision of Prof Steve Hill and Prof Ian Hall. Having obtained a PhD (2004), I found I loved both research and clinical medicine so much that I wanted to pursue a joint career. I was fortunate to be awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinician Scientist Fellowship (2004-2010) to continue my research whilst completing my clinical training. In 2010, I became an honorary Consultant in Respiratory Medicine in Queen's Medical Centre and in 2013 a Professor of Drug Discovery and Respiratory Medicine in the School of Life Sciences.

Expertise Summary

As a doctor working in the area of adult sleep and respiratory medicine in Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, I see first-hand many of the short-comings of some of our current drugs. For some medical conditions, we just do not have the right drugs. For other conditions the side-effects of our existing drugs cause problems for all, or some, of the people who take them. My research interests are therefore two-fold. Firstly, I am interested in the molecular pharmacology of GPCRs. These are the specialised docking sites on the outside of cells where certain hormones act (e.g. adrenaline), and where some drugs act (e.g. β-blockers for heart disease, and the blue inhalers used for asthma). My research is aimed at detailed scientific understanding of how these hormones and drugs interact with receptors to cause changes in the cell behaviour, and ultimately clinical benefit. Secondly, I combine my clinical and pharmacology knowledge to understand how clinical drugs act, why side effects occur, to help discover molecules without these side effects that have potential to become better future drugs, and to identify novel drugs for medical conditions with few treatment options. My ultimate aim is to improve clinical drug treatments for patients.

Selected Publications

School of Life Sciences

University of Nottingham
Medical School
Queen's Medical Centre
Nottingham NG7 2UH

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