Personal Chair: Giles Hardingham
Professor Giles Hardingham has been appointed Personal Chair in Molecular Neurobiology.
Professor Hardingham completed a BA in Natural Sciences at Sidney Sussex College, the University of Cambridge, in 1994.
He followed this in 1998 with a PhD in molecular neuroscience at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, under the supervision of Professor Hilmar Bading.
He then became a Fellow at Clare College, the University of Cambridge, and continued to work at the MRC.
In 2002, he moved to the University of Edinburgh to pursue independent research, first as a Royal Society University Research Fellow, from 2002, and then as an MRC Senior Non-Clinical research Fellow, from 2010.
His laboratory is interested in the molecular mechanisms that control the survival and health of neurons, in particular how genes are turned on and off in order to control this process.
Knowing what keeps neurons healthy and functioning normally can point to ways to understand or even combat neurodegenerative diseases.
His laboratory also investigates the mechanisms that cause the demise of neurons in harmful situations, such as during a stroke.
Professor Hardingham lives in Edinburgh with his partner Cathy and their three young children.