Susan D. Brain

Susan Diana Brain is a professor of pharmacology at the School of Cardiovascular Medicine and Sciences at King's College London where she has worked since 1989.

Education Brain completed a PhD in pharmacology at University College London in 1981.

Career and research

Brain held a postdoctoral post at the Institute of Dermatology. In 1989 she took up a lectureship at King's College London, where she was promoted to Reader in 1993 and in 1998 she was made Professor of Pharmacology at the School of Cardiovascular Medicine, where since 2005 she has been Head of the Vascular Biology and Inflammation Section. She was also Head of the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Education Department between 2011 and 2018.

Brain's research investigates the role of sensory nerves in vascular inflammation. In her early career she discovered the Calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonist (CGRP) as a potent microvascular vasodilator. More recently her research found that the gene TRPC5 can help protect against pain in arthritis and that the gene TRPA1 is essential for the vascular response when being exposed to cold environments.

Awards and honours In 2018 she was elected as honorary fellow of the British Pharmacological Society.