Dr Sue Jones

Sue's love of ion channels and their modulation started during her degree in Pharmacology at King's College London and continued during her PhD in the lab of Professor David Brown at University College London, where she identified G proteins involved in the modulation of M-type K⁺ currents. She moved from voltage gated ion channels to ligand gated ion channels during her postdoctoral work, first with Dr Jerry Yakel at NIEHS, where she studied nicotinic AChRs and 5HT3Rs, and then with Dr Julie Kauer at Duke University, where she studied modulation and plasticity at excitatory synapses. After moving to Cambridge in 2001 she focused on the properties and modulation of glutamate receptors, particularly the NMDA receptor, in midbrain dopamine neurons. She currently studies neuronal plasticity involving both ligand-gated and voltage-gated ion channels occurring in brain regions concerned with puberty and sexual activity (in collaboration with Professor Bill Colledge) and substance abuse disorders (with Professor David Belin).

Sue has a small lab to ensure she can personally train and supervise lab members wishing to learn electrophysiology. The lab currently includes two co-supervised PhD students, one co-supervised MPhil student and undergraduate students. She has weekly informal lab meetings to encourage open discussions about progress, challenges and potential problems and she chats informally with lab members most days to check on their wellbeing. She promotes a healthy work-life balance and encourages participation in extracurricular professional development, such as teaching experience or courses, as well as time away from the lab.

Sue has been pro-active in establishing a positive research culture in her Department, Chairing the PDN Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Taskforce in 2021-2022 to set up a dedicated ED&I website for PDN (https://www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/intranet/equality-diversity-and-inclusion) and working with Trish Murray to establish a sign-posting web tool to ensure positive values are promoted and communicated to all members of PDN (https://www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/intranet/life-pdn). For Sue, within her lab, equality means that anyone with enthusiasm and motivation can start or continue their journey in neuroscience; equity means that we all have different strengths and therefore need to be supported in different ways to reach our individual goals; inclusivity means that every member of the lab feels welcome and valued and able to access necessary training and support; diversity means that we strive for a lab group consisting of different backgrounds and philosophies because this makes us better and stronger.