Professor Brain is a Professor of Pharmacology at King's College London.

When studying cardiovascular biology as a young scientist, she realised that a newly discovered a substance 'CGRP' was able to increase skin blood flow in a more potent manner than anything known, with potential as a cardiovascular regulatory peptide. Others then realised it was present in areas related to headaches. This led to the discovery that blocking CGRP benefitted migraine. Now treatment of moderate to severe migraine with CGRP blockers has been hailed as a major new class of medicines.

Meanwhile, Professor Brain will also describe how her team have learnt of the cardiovascular protective activities of CGRP and how this may potentially be developed for use clinically in treating heart failure.

Professor Brain is Professor of Pharmacology at King's College London and is a Chartered Science Teacher. She is Head of the Vascular Biology and Inflammation FWB Laboratories and School Lead for Development Diversity and Inclusion. She is an Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.

Professor Brain has published over 200 research publications. Her recent research is into the role of CGRP in protecting against heart failure. She has also characterised the role of CGRP and related agents in the vascular response to cold.

She was recipient of the BPS Sandoz prize for her scientific contributions to pharmacology (1989), won the Women in Inflammation Science Award presented at the World Inflammation Congress (2003), a King's Supervisory Award (2008 and 2019), the BPS AstraZeneca prize for Women (2010) and the International Ariens Award (2016, presented by the Dutch Pharmacology Society). This year she was awarded a Chaffer Visiting Fellowship.

She has organised several international science meetings and sits on the Royal Society Member, Royal Society's Newton International Fellowships Biological Sciences Panel.

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