Speakers
We’re excited to welcome an exceptional line-up of invited speakers to this year’s BSN Annual Meeting. These leading researchers are driving innovation in neuroendocrinology and will be sharing cutting-edge insights across the field.
Don’t miss the chance to be inspired - join us for a programme full of groundbreaking science and expert perspectives.
It is with great pleasure that we announce Professor Denise Belsham as the recipient and presenter of the Alison Douglas Lecture at BSN 2025. She will also speak in the symposium Endocrine Disruption by Environmental Factors. Professor Anne White will deliver the distinguished Mortyn Jones Lecture. The scientific programme will further feature Professor Simone Meddle and Dr Chris Faulkes in the symposium Beyond Traditional Models in Neuroendocrine Research, and Dr Beatrice Maria Filippi alongside Professor Jonathan Johnston in the symposium Rhythms and Hormonal Interactions. We look forward to an inspiring and insightful programme at #BSNBradford 2025.
Denise D. Belsham
Professor of Physiology and Medicine
University of Toronto, Canada
Professor Belsham has over 30 years of neuroendocrine research in obesity, circadian rhythms, and reproduction. She was awarded a Canada Research Chair and the President’s Teaching Award, the highest research and teaching accolades at the University of Toronto and has trained over 170 ECRs in her lab, many who have been women and minorities under-represented in STEM. She is currently the President of the International Neuroendocrine Federation and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Neuroendocrinology.
Get a glimpse of themes covered in this lecture
The hypothalamus consists of a complex array of neuronal cell types that come together in a fascinating integrated tapestry to control all of our key physiological processes. This can be compared to how important it is to create a laboratory filled with young scientists from all aspects of our cultural and societal mosaic. Scientific success knows no boundaries if the ideas, motivation and innovation come together as seamless as the cellular basis of hypothalamic function.
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Anne White
Professor of Endocrine Sciences
University of Manchester, UK
Anne is Professor of Endocrine Sciences at the University of Manchester and her research passion is the biochemical processing of POMC to ACTH and melanocortin peptides and their actions both in the stress axis and in neuropeptide networks linked to obesity. Her research has led to ground-breaking changes in the way ACTH is measured in most hospital labs. She was awarded a Royal Society Research Fellowship with Astra Zeneca to study the impact of glucocorticoid metabolism on the HPA axis and in 2020, the Jubilee Medal by the Society for Endocrinology. In parallel, Anne has had numerous leadership roles including Dean for Graduate Education at the University of Manchester and treasurer on the Executive Board of the Society for Endocrinology and BioScientifica.
Get a glimpse of themes covered in this lecture
In her lecture, Professor Anne White, has set herself the challenge of explaining the implications of both hypothalamic and pituitary processing of POMC. In the pituitary, POMC is processed to ACTH but in certain disease states, this processing is disrupted such that alterations in circulating levels of POMC and ACTH are used as biomarkers for differential diagnosis. In the hypothalamus, POMC derived peptides such as alpha-MSH are important in regulating food intake and energy balance. The correct cellular processing of POMC is critical as mutations in this pathway result in obesity. We have learnt a lot, but there are complexities in POMC networks which we don’t yet understand. Addressing these issues will be important in resolving neuroendocrine imbalances which drive obesity and metabolic syndrome.
Please follow the links below to learn more about our invited speaker.
Simone Meddle
Personal Chair of Behavioural Neuroendocrinology
University of Edinburgh, UK
Professor Simone Meddle is Head of The Division of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences has a Personal Chair in Behavioural Neuroendocrinology and is the Mary Dick Chair of Physiology at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Medicine. Simone became a Lecturer in Veterinary Biomedical Sciences at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Medicine in 2005 and was promoted to Senior lecturer in 2008 and Reader in 2011. Simone is a Group Leader at the Roslin Institute and was the Lead of the BBSRC Institute Strategic program Improving Animal Production and Welfare (2017- 2022). She leads a research group funded by the BBSRC, NSF, NC3R's, The Leverhulme Trust and The Royal Society that investigates how environmental and social cues can trigger functionally important behaviours such as response to light, stress, food intake, reproduction, photoperiodism and aggression by examining the neuroendocrine system and behaviour. She is also investigating the neurobiology of positive welfare (environmental enrichment) and behaviour. Simone served on BBSRC committee A member as a Chair and as a core member. Simone teaches extensively on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
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Beatrice Maria Filippi
Associate Professor in Neuroendocrinology
University of Leeds, UK
Dr Filippi is an Associate Professor and group leader in
Neuroendocrinology. Her research investigates how insulin signalling in the dorsal vagal complex (DVC) of the brain regulates glucose metabolism, feeding behaviour, and energy expenditure in healthy, obese, and diabetic rodent models. Using in vivo techniques like brain-targeted injections and glucose clamps, combined with histological and molecular analyses, she explores central
insulin action and resistance. Her goal is to identify brain circuits and molecular pathways that maintain metabolic homeostasis and contribute to obesity and diabetes.
Get a glimpse of themes covered in this lecture
Discover how the brain helps regulate blood sugar in this talk on a newly uncovered insulin-sensitive pathway in the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS). We have found that insulin acts on astrocytes in the NTS to trigger the release of endozepines—molecules that suppress liver glucose production by modulating GABAA receptor activity. This breakthrough reveals a critical brain–liver communication axis and opens new avenues for understanding and potentially treating metabolic disorders like diabetes and obesity.
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Jonathan Johnston
Professor of Chronobiology and Integrative Physiology
University of Surrey, UK
I am Professor of Chronobiology and Integrative Physiology at the University of Surrey, UK. The BSN was the first scientific society that I joined, and I served on its steering committee between 2006-2020. I have also served on committees of other societies, and as a panel member on grant funding bodies, including the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
My current research falls in the BSN areas of biological rhythms and nutritional/metabolic physiology. This work is primarily performed in controlled human laboratory studies. However, I spent my postgraduate and postdoctoral years studying hypothalamus-pituitary regulation in vitro and using animal models such as hamsters, sheep, and mice.
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Chris Faulkes
Reader in Evolutionary Ecology
Queen Mary University of London, UK
Chris began his academic career at the Zoological Society of London and is currently based at Queen Mary University of London. He has worked for over 35 years on the evolution of social and reproductive behaviour in cooperatively-breeding mammals, with particular emphasis on the naked mole-rat. His research takes a broad approach encompassing genomics, epigenetics, neuroendocrinology and behaviour to understand mammalian social evolution, ageing and adaptations to living underground.
Get a glimpse of themes covered in this lecture
In his lecture Chris will introduce the African mole-rats as a non-traditional model in neuroendocrine research, describing in particular the lifestyle of the naked mole-rat. Naked mole-rats are a unique and long-lived “social-insect like” mammal with extreme adaptations to living underground in the arid regions of East Africa. In colonies that may contain up to 300 individuals, only a single female, the queen, breeds. “Adult” non-breeders of both sexes act as colony helpers and are held in a more or less permanent (but reversible) pre-pubertal state as a result of social cues from the queen suppressing the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. Chris will review our current understanding of this unique system, and the possible role of prolactin in mediating cooperation and reproductive suppression.
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