Professor Lindy Holden-Dye

I hold a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. I have been external examiner at several universities. I enjoy teaching our undergraduates pharmacology and neuroscience.

Professor Lindy Holden-Dye holds a personal Chair in Neuroscience within Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton. Her interests focus on fundamental processes of neuronal communication and she has established research expertise in invertebrate preparations. Through this interest she has contributed to research relevant to a number of important areas of neuroscience that inform understanding of mental health. Her expertise in invertebrate neuroscience, and in particular nematode neural systems and the model genetic organism Caenorhabditis elegans positions her well to participate in drug discovery and mode of action programmes for novel antiparasitics. For the last two decades she has collaborated with industry to improve prospects for parasitic nematode control. Her research group identified the molecular target for the resistance breaking anthelmintic emodepside showing it acts through a calcium-activated K+ channel SLO-1 to bring about neuromuscular paralysis in nematode worms. This discovery has paved the way for the pursuit of new approaches to the treatment of human filarial disease. The experimental approaches deployed in her research group encompass genetics through to whole animal physiology and incorporate novel methods for tracking animal behaviour and signal processing.