Anant Parekh facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anant Parekh
FRS FMedSci MAE
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| Born |
Anant B. Parekh
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| Education | Hymers College |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physiology |
| Institutions | Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry University of Oxford |
| Thesis | Stimulus-contraction coupling in circular smooth muscle of guinea-pig stomach (1991) |
| Doctoral advisor | Alison Brading |
Anant B. Parekh is a British scientist who studies how the human body works. He is a professor of Physiology at the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow at Merton College, Oxford.
Contents
Education and Early Research
Anant Parekh went to Hymers College and then to University College, Oxford. He earned a special degree called a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1991. A PhD is a very high degree for people who do a lot of research. His research was about how smooth muscles work in the body.
After getting his PhD, he continued his research in Germany. He worked at the Max Planck Institute. There, he worked with a scientist named Erwin Neher, who had won a Nobel Prize.
Studying How Cells Communicate
Dr. Parekh's main research is about how our body's cells talk to each other. He focuses on something called "calcium signaling." Calcium is a very important messenger inside our cells. It helps control many body functions, like:
- How cells release substances (secretion)
- How cells make energy
- How genes in our cells work
Calcium and Health
Dr. Parekh also studies how problems with calcium signals can make people sick. For example, he looks at how they might cause allergies and asthma.
He uses different types of cells and even human tissues in his studies. He examines how special proteins called "calcium channels" work. These channels let calcium enter cells from the blood. This calcium entry then triggers important responses in the body.
If too much or too little calcium enters the cells, it can lead to diseases. This is why understanding these calcium channels (CRACs) is so important. They could be targets for new medicines to treat illnesses.
Awards and Honours
Dr. Parekh has received several important awards for his work:
- In 2002, he became a member of Academia Europaea (MAE).
- In 2012, he was made a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci).
- Also in 2012, he was given the George Lindor Brown prize lecture by The Physiological Society.
- In 2019, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honour for scientists in the UK.
Personal Life
Anant Parekh is the youngest of three sons. His father is Bhikhu Parekh, Lord Parekh, who is a member of the Labour Party in the UK. All three sons received scholarships to study at the University of Oxford.
