Thudichum Medal Lectures were inaugurated in 1974 to honour eminent scientists who have made outstanding contributions to neurochemistry and related subjects. Professor JLW Thudichum (1829-1901) was a pioneer of brain chemistry over a century ago.
At the announcement of the award, Fran said: “This is a great honour and reflects the hard work and dedication of the many talented members of my lab that I have had the pleasure of working with over the years. I hope it will also encourage more people to work on the enigmatic sphingolipids and raise awareness of the rare diseases associated with defects in sphingolipid metabolism.”
Fran obtained her BSc from Imperial College London (Zoology) and her PhD from the University of Bath, UK. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Washington University Medical School in St Louis, USA. She was a Lister Institute Senior Research Fellow and is currently Professor of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. Her main research interests include the biology and pathobiology of glycosphingolipids and lysosomal disorders. Her research led to the development of miglustat for the treatment of glycosphingolipid lysosomal storage diseases.
Professor Platt was awarded the Alan Gordon Memorial Award and the Horst Bickel Award for advances in metabolic disease therapy. She was elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2011 and was the recipient of a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award in 2013. In 2016 she became a Wellcome Trust Investigator in Science. She was appointed Head of the Department of Pharmacology in 2020 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.
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