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Sheena Radford
OBE FRS FMedSci
Sheena Radford OBE FRS FMedSci
Born	Sheena Elizabeth Radford
Alma mater	University of Birmingham; University of Cambridge;
Spouse	Alan Berry
	Scientific career
Fields	Biophysics; Structural biology; Protein folding;
Institutions	University of Leeds; University of Oxford;
Thesis	Domains and conformational flexibility in the catalytic mechanism of the 2-oxo acid dehydrogenase complexes (1987)
Website	https://biologicalsciences.leeds.ac.uk/biological-sciences/staff/127/professor-sheena-radford http://sheena-radford-lab.uk https://astbury.leeds.ac.uk/people/professor-sheena-radford/

Sheena Elizabeth Radford is a British biophysicist, and Astbury Professor of Biophysics and a Royal Society Research Professor in the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Leeds.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] Radford is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Molecular Biology.^[5]

Education

Radford received her BSc in Biochemistry at the University of Birmingham^[5] in 1984,^[6] and her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge in 1987.^[1]^[7]^[8] Radford completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford.^[6]

Career and research

Radford was a postdoc and Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, then worked as a Lecturer in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds in 1995, progressing to Reader in 1998 and Professor in 2000. She became the deputy director of the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology in 2009 then Director in 2012 - 2021.^[5] Radford's research^[9] investigates protein folding, protein aggregation and amyloid disease. Her multi-disciplinary research focuses include such disciplines as biochemistry, chemistry and medicine.

One major research focus is the role of protein misfolding in the onset of amyloidogenic diseases, including dialysis-related amyloidosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Type II diabetes. This has been done with the use of native mass spectrometry, NMR and single molecule methods to characterize intermediates of protein folding and in amyloid formation.^[5] A second research focus is on the folding of outer membrane proteins of Gram-negative organisms. Understanding the mechanics of how these proteins fold will help derive new antibiotics. A third arm looks at how the shelf life of pharmaceutical drugs could be extended.

Awards and honours

1996, Biochemical Society Colworth Medal
2003, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
2005, Royal Society of Chemistry Astra-Zeneca prize in Proteins and Peptides
2007, Elected member of EMBO
2009, Ron Hites Award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (joint with Professor Alison Ashcroft)
2010, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences
2013, Protein Society Carl Brändén Award
2014, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
2014, Honorary member of the British Biophysical Society
2015, Rita and John Cornforth Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry (joint with Professor Alison Ashcroft)
2018, Fellow of the Biophysical Society
2020, Member of Academia Europaea
2020, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)
2021, Royal Society Professorship
2021, Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology
2022, Doctorate honoris causa from the University of Liège
2024, International Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA
2025, Biochemistry Society Centenary Award