Dr Ian Forster
BEng (Elec), MApplSc, PhD

Dr Forster obtained his PhD in electrical engineering as a member of the Bionic Ear team, designing and developing the successful prototype implantable cochlear implant in 1979.

After a brief stint at the Institute of Neurology, London, he moved to the University of Zurich, to focus on membrane biophysics and electrophysiology of voltage-gated ion channels (collaborating with Professor RD Keynes, University of Cambridge), ligand-gated receptor channels (collaborating with Professor D Bertrand, University of Geneva) and structure-function of membrane transport proteins, with Professor H Murer (University of Zurich) and Prof Ernest Wright (UCLA). He was a member of the Swiss Space Biology team that first performed electrophysiology on living egg cells under microgravity.

Dr Forster relocated to Melbourne in 2016 where he set up his electrophysiology rigs in the Ion channels and Disease group to focus on structure-function relations of voltage gated ion channels. He has expertise in applying electrophysiological and fluorometric techniques to the Xenopus oocyte expression system, which he uses to study epilepsy-causing channel mutations and as potential therapeutic targets.

He is actively involved in teaching at undergraduate and post-graduate levels and runs an annual e-phys workshop at The Florey.