Role
Thomas Wishart joined NTU in October 2024 to lead the Neuroscience research theme within SHIMR. He is supported in this by Richard Hulse acting as deputy.
Career overview
Tom Wishart (BSc, MBA, PhD, FAS, FRSB) gained his PhD in Molecular and Cellular
Neuroscience in 2006 at the University of Edinburgh (UoE) and has since contributed to
>70 manuscripts.
His research focused on developing methods to identify factors regulating the stability of the nervous system in health and disease. This is primarily through a combination of anatomically dictated molecular analysis of differentially vulnerable neuronal populations.
In 2011 he took up a junior group leader position at the Roslin Institute which pushed his research towards comparisons across a diverse array of model systems and developing the capability to move between pathological assessment and molecular analysis of mammalian (including but not limited to murine, ovine & equine) neuronal systems through to in silico identification of potential regulatory cascades and lower order model(Drosophila) based in vivo assessment of candidate ability to modulate neuronal morphology and/or stability.
His groups multi species comparative approaches have been published as recommended workflows for novel therapeutic target identification. He was granted tenure in 2017, is a member of the Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neuron Disease research, and until recently was the co-head of Translational Biomarker discovery for the Centre of Dementia Prevention, Academic lead of the Proteomics and Metabolomics facility and Deputy Director of the Roslin Institute at UoE, with responsibility for all Translation and Commercialisation activity. He is now neuroscience lead at NTU, Professor of Molecular Anatomy (90% NTU, and 10% UoE) and Academic Lead for Livestock Models of Neurological Disorders (ALLMoND).
Research areas
Thomas is a molecular biologist by training. He has been a long time user of proteomic techniques to underpin a broad range of molecular investigations into the composition of multiple body systems (with a predominant focus on the neurological and muscular system).
First as a post doctoral researcher in the lab of Prof Tom Gillingwater (Anatomy, University of Edinburgh), and in conjunction with Douglas Lamont (head of the “Fingerprints” facility, Dundee University), as an independent researcher and acting as academic lead for the Proteomics and Metabolomics facility (managed by Dr Dominic Kurian) at the Roslin Institute (a BBSRC Institute sitting within the University of Edinburgh): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=wishart+tm+AND+proteomics&sort=date
He also has a focus on translational relevance of the research that is undertaken and the
use of appropriate model systems for examination of candidate ability to moderate stability of the nervous system: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/term=wishart+tm+AND+drosophila&sort=date and our ability to appropriately scale up (pK and pD etc) to bridge the gap between rodent derived therapeutics and something which is more likely to be effective in the clinic: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=wishart+tm+AND+sheep&sort=date
Publications
Thomas publications: Publications