Frances Ashcroft is Professor of Physiology in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and Director of OXION, a research and training initiative on ion channels. She holds BA, PhD and ScD degrees from the University of Cambridge and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1999.
Frances is internationally renowned for her work on insulin secretion, type 2 diabetes and neonatal diabetes. She has won many awards, including the Croonian Lecture (The Royal Society 2013), the L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Award (European Laureate 2012).
She has written several books for the general reader. Her most recent, The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body, explains the fundamental role of ion channels in the human body by linking the latest scientific research with true stories.