Professor Peter McNaughton FMedSci

Peter McNaughton is a leading figure in the field of sensory physiology and pharmacology, addressing the molecular processes by which external stimuli are transduced into a nervous signal in sensory receptors. For the first part of his research career he worked on sensory transduction in photoreceptors from the vertebrate retina. In a pioneering study of the mechanism by which temperatures are sensed, he discovered that heat activates pain-sensitive nerve endings by directly opening a specific ion channel in the neuronal membrane. In more recent research he has focused on molecular mechanisms by which pain increases following injury or inflammation. He has initiated a major drug discovery project to exploit the identification of HCN2 as a novel analgesic target.