Robert James Lucas - Curriculum Vitae#

Current Position:

GSK Professor of Neuroscience, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester

Biography:

After graduating from the University of York with a degree in Biological Sciences in 1989 Rob worked for a contract research organization in the pharmaceutical industry for 3 years. He then returned to academia to study for a PhD sponsored by the Agricultural and Food Research Council in the laboratory of Andrew Loudon at the Institute of Zoology in London. His PhD studies concerned mechanisms of circadian control of the neuroendocrine axis in mammals and resulted in publication of 3 first author papers. Upon graduation he continued to post-doctoral research in the Biology Department at Imperial College. Under the mentorship of Russell Foster his interests evolved to include retinal influences on the circadian and neuroendocrine systems. During this time he was fortunate to contribute to the demonstration that light can modulate these physiological systems via a novel, non-rod non-cone photoreceptor. In 2000 he was awarded a Governors’ research lectureship in the Faculty of Medicine, setting up his own laboratory to study the form and function of these new photoreceptors. Over the intervening years at Imperial and, since 2003, in the Faculty of Life Sciences in Manchester, his laboratory has made a series of seminal discoveries in this field.

Current Major Research Funding:

• ‘Melanopsin based vision in health and disease’. European Research Council Advanced Grant. €2.5m over 60 months.
• ‘The contribution of inner retinal photoreceptors to mouse visual function.’ Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). £500,208 over 36 months.
  
• ‘Realising the optogenetic potential of JellyOp: an opsin photopigment from box jellyfish.’ BBSRC £371,000 over 36 months.
  

Teaching and professional activities:

Rob served as an introducing member on the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council funding committee A from 2008-2011. He is an associate editor for Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews series “Membrane Transport and Signaling” and sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Genetics. He acts as the UK expert representative on European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Technical Committee 169 Working Group 13 “Non-visual effects of ocular light on human beings”.

Post-doctoral researchers have left Rob’s lab for independent academic positions (at the Universities of Kent and Manchester) and prestigious career development fellowships (BBSRC David Philips). He has also trained 5 PhD students, 4 of whom have continued to careers in laboratory research. A number of past and present lab members have won prizes for research quality and/or presentations, including an award of the GSK sponsored Westminster medal.

Rob enjoys teaching and contributes lectures, practical classes and tutorials on chronobiology and early steps in vision to undergraduate life scientists and medical students. He is external examiner for the Masters in Medical Science at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton.