Rate My Professor Iain Greenwood

Professor Iain Greenwood is Professor of Vascular Pharmacology at St George's, University of London, co-director of the BSc in Clinical Pharmacology, and Head of the Vascular Biology Research Section in the Cardiovascular & Genomics Research Institute. He obtained a First class Honours Degree in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of Hertfordshire in 1990 and a PhD from the Smooth Muscle Research Group at the University of Manchester. Greenwood joined St George's in 1993 as a postdoctoral researcher, advanced through various academic positions, and was appointed Professor in August 2013. He also holds an adjunct professorship in the Department of Biomedical Sciences (Heart and Circulatory Research Section) at the University of Copenhagen, arising from a five-year collaboration. His career includes serving as Director for the Pharmacy MPharm degree jointly with Kingston University from 2010 to 2019, Chief Examiner for the Biomedical Sciences Degree from 2005 to 2015, and co-creator of the UK's first undergraduate Clinical Pharmacology degree with first intake in 2019. He was editor for the British Journal of Pharmacology from 2006 to 2013 and currently acts as Vice President for External Affairs of the British Pharmacological Society.

Greenwood's research examines ion channels that regulate smooth muscle activity in blood vessels, intestines, uterus, and bladder under physiological and disease conditions. Primary focuses encompass potassium channels encoded by KCNQ genes and ether-a-go-go related genes (associated with hereditary neuronal and cardiac diseases), calcium-gated chloride channels underlying vascular smooth muscle contraction, voltage-gated sodium channels (SCN5A genes), and hyperpolarisation-activated cation channels (HCN genes). His work is funded by the British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, Action Medical Research, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Key publications include 'Cycling matters: Sex hormone regulation of vascular potassium channels' (Baldwin SN et al., Channels, 2023), 'Molecular Mechanisms of Activation and Regulation of ANO1-Encoded Ca²⁺-Activated Cl⁻ Channels' (Hawn MB et al., Channels, 2021), 'Key role for Kv11.1 (ether-a-go-go related gene) channels in rat bladder contractility' (Barrese V et al., Physiological Reports, 2023), and 'The novel KV7 channel activator URO-K10 exerts enhanced pulmonary vascular effects' (Villegas-Esguevillas M et al., Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, 2023). Awards include the Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship (1998), Elected Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society (2011), Zaimis Prize for teaching Pharmacology (2017), Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2022), and Honorary Fellowship of the British Pharmacological Society (2023).