Rate My Professor David Spanswick

Professor David Spanswick is a Professor in the Department of Physiology at Monash University, affiliated with the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, where he heads the Obesity and Metabolic Neurophysiology Laboratory. He graduated with a B.Sc. from the University of East Anglia, UK, in 1986, and obtained his PhD in neurophysiology from the University of Birmingham. His postdoctoral training included positions in Steve Logan's group at the University of Birmingham, Leo Renaud's group in Canada, and with Syogoro Nishi, Hideho Higashi, Hiroe Inokuchi, and Megumu Yoshimura in Japan. He served as a lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, undertook a sabbatical at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, and Parke-Davis, became a senior lecturer at the University of Warwick in 2000, and was appointed Professor of Molecular Neuroscience at Warwick Medical School in 2004. In October 2011, he joined the Department of Physiology at Monash University.

David Spanswick's research focuses on metabolic neuroscience, examining central neural mechanisms that control energy balance, including glucose-sensing neurons, hypothalamic circuits, and their plasticity in obesity and diabetes. His laboratory investigates neuroendocrine, autonomic, and behavioral responses to energy disturbances using electrophysiological approaches. He has received the Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation Research Fellowship in 1993, Joy Chrisholm Fellowship in 1999, and Royal Society Travel Scholarships in 1993, 1995, and 1998. Key publications include "Leptin inhibits hypothalamic neurons by activation of ATP-sensitive potassium channels" (1997), "Insulin activates ATP-sensitive K+ channels in hypothalamic neurons of lean, but not obese rats" (2000), "Orexigen-sensitive NPY/AgRP pacemaker neurons in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus" (2004), "Selective activation of Gαob by an adenosine A1 receptor agonist elicits analgesia without cardiorespiratory depression" (2022, Nature Communications), and "Metabolic sensing in AgRP neurons integrates homeostatic state with dopamine signalling in the striatum" (2022, eLife). Spanswick acts as a referee for journals such as Nature, Journal of Neuroscience, and Cell Metabolism, and for grant agencies including the Wellcome Trust, MRC, and NIH.