Graeme Henderson (scientist)

Education and career

Graeme Henderson grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, and attended Shawlands Academy. He received his BSc in pharmacology from the University of Glasgow in 1971 and then studied for a PhD in the laboratory of John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz at the University of Aberdeen, working on the effects of opiates on release of neurotransmitters. Following the award of his PhD in 1974 he worked with Richard Alan North in Aberdeen and at Loyola University of Chicago studying opioid activation of potassium channels in brain neurons. He was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Cambridge and to a fellowship of Sidney Sussex College in 1980. Along with Elizabeth Seward he demonstrated that opioid receptor activation inhibited the opening of voltage-gated calcium channels. In 1991 he was appointed to a chair of pharmacology and became head of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Bristol.

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Research

Henderson's current research focuses on the mechanisms by which opioid drugs affect the central nervous system. In particular, his research group has studied the cellular mechanisms by which tolerance is developed to opioid drugs and how that tolerance may be reduced by other drugs such as ethanol and pregabalin enhancing the likelihood of opioid overdose.

Academic leadership

He served as president of the British Pharmacological Society from 2006 to 2007 and as first vice president of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) from 2010 to 2018. He is currently a member of the UK Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and of the scientific committee of Drug Science since 2010.

Honours and awards

Wellcome Gold Medal, British Pharmacological Society 2019
Honorary Fellow, British Pharmacological Society 2014
Vane Medal, British Pharmacological Society 2013
Founders’ Lecturer, International Narcotics Research Conference 2013
Fellow, Royal Society of Biology 2011
Sandoz Prize, British Pharmacological Society 1984

Notable publications

Johnson EA, Oldfield S... Henderson G (2006). Agonist-selective mechanisms of the μ-opioid receptor desensitization in human embryonic kidney 293 cells. Molecular Pharmacology. 70(2): pgs. 676-685
Khakh BS, Henderson G (1998). ATP receptor-mediated enhancement of fast excitatory neurotransmitter release in the brain. Molecular Pharmacology. 54(2): pgs. 372-378
Connor M, Yeo A, Henderson G (1996). The effect of nociceptin on Ca²⁺ channel current and intracellular Ca²⁺ in the SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cell line. British Journal of Pharmacology. 118(2): pgs. 205-207
Waterfield AA, Smockcum RWJ... Henderson G (1977). In vitro pharmacology of the opioid peptides, enkephalins, and endorphins. European Journal of Pharmacology. 43(2): pgs. 107-116
Henderson G, Hughes J, Kosterlitz HW (1972). A new example of a morphine-sensitive neuro-effector junction: adrenergic transmission in the mouse vans deferens. British Journal of Pharmacology. 46(4): pgs. 764-766