Pamela Shaw

Dame Pamela Jean Shaw (born 1955) is a British consultant neurologist and professor of neurology at the University of Sheffield. She is the founder and director of the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience, and in 2019 was appointed to lead the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre.

Early life and education Shaw was born in Rothbury, Northumberland, England in 1955.

In 1979 Shaw graduated with first class honours in Medicine from the University of Newcastle and was awarded several prizes during her undergraduate degree. She subsequently undertook further training in neurology at Newcastle, worked towards the award of Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom and was awarded an Doctor of Medicine degree in 1988. Her doctoral work was on the neurological and neuropsychological complications of coronary artery bypass surgery.

Since 1991, long-term funding from the Wellcome Trust has supported her research group to study the source of neurodegenerative disorders of the human motor system. They have been able to implicate various subcellular pathways and cellular features in susceptibility. In addition, they have screened candidates for potential treatment for these disorders. This work contributed to evidence underpinning the use of riluzole in motor neurone disease. and in 2019 was appointed to lead the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre.

Shaw has been chair of the Clinical Research and Academic Committee of the Association of British Neurologists. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007.

In 2019 she was awarded the G. L. Brown prize lecture by The Physiological Society.