Professor Robin McAllen
BSc, PhD, MBChB, FAPS

Robin McAllen was recruited from England to The Florey in 1988. Previously he studied at the University College London (BSc in Physiology) and the University of Birmingham (PhD in Physiology and MB ChB) before establishing his laboratory in the Physiology Department at the University of Bristol.

He and his colleagues have made several contributions to the knowledge of how the brain, via the autonomic nervous system, regulates basic functions that maintain the body’s health (homeostasis). Those functions include regulating the heart and blood pressure, controlling body temperature and breathing. This line of research, using laboratory animals, has helped define specific nuclei within the brain stem where these various autonomic functions are controlled. A high point has been the application of functional MRI to demonstrate that those identical nuclei can now be identified in the working human brain stem.

Most recently, he and colleagues have been investigating how, via autonomic nerves, the brain is able to modulate inflammatory processes in the body and to influence immune function.