2004 Selection Committee

Dr. Norman Bowery • Dr. Anthony H. Dickenson • Dr. Robert Elde
Dr. Frank Porreca • Dr. William D. Willis

Dr. Norman Bowery
Professor and Head of Department of Pharmacology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England

Professor Norman Bowery, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Birmingham, England, received his PhD in Pharmacology from St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School in London in 1974. From 1975 to 1984 he was Lecturer in Pharmacology at St. Thomas's Hospital Medical School, London. It was during this time that he and his group first characterized a novel GABA_B receptor. In 1987, following a brief period in the pharmaceutical industry at Merck Sharp and Dohme's Neuroscience Research Centre in Harlow, England, Dr. Bowery was appointed the Wellcome Professor of Pharmacology at the School of Pharmacology, London. In 1995, he moved to the University of Birmingham Medical School in England as Professor of Pharmacology, and he is currently Head of the Department.

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Dr. Anthony H. Dickenson
Professor of Neuropharmacology, University College, London, England

Professor Anthony H. Dickenson, Professor of Neuropharmacology, University College, London, England, graduated in physiology and biochemistry and did research for a PhD in neuropharmacology at the National Institute for Medical Research. He then worked in Paris as an MRC-INSERM exchange fellow before returning to the Institute in 1979. He joined the Pharmacology Department as a lecturer in 1983 and has had visiting positions in Sweden and the University of California. Dr. Dickenson became a Professor of Neuropharmacology in 1995 and is the current Departmental Graduate Advisor.

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Dr. Robert Elde
Dean of the College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota

Robert Elde was named Dean of the University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences in 1995. A 1969 honors graduate of North Park College in Chicago with a BA degree in Biology and Chemistry, he received his PhD in Anatomy from the University of Minnesota in 1974. He joined the University of Minnesota’s faculty in 1978 and is now the J. B. Johnston Land Grant Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Neuroscience.

Dr. Elde received an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1996 for his pioneering localizations of opioid peptides and their receptors in various neuronal circuits and the localization of ATP-gated ion channels. Research in Dr. Elde’s laboratory is aimed at understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie pain.

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Dr. Frank Porreca
Professor of Pharmacology and Anesthesiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

Professor Frank Porreca, Professor of Pharmacology and Anesthesiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, received his PhD in Pharmacology from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1982. He then pursued postdoctoral work at the University of Arizona before joining its Department of Pharmacology as Assistant Professor in 1985. In 1990 he became a Professor in the Department and has worked on opioid receptor function and mechanisms of pain since that time.

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William D. Willis, MD, PhD
Professor and Chairman, Department of Anatomy & Neurosciences, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas

Professor William D. Willis is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anatomy & Neurosciences at the University of Texas’ Medical Branch in Galveston, as well as Director of the Marine Biomedical Institute. He obtained his BS and BA degrees from Texas A&M University in 1956, received his MD degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas in 1960, and earned his PhD degree from the Australian National University in 1963. After pursuing postdoctoral research at both Australian National University and the Institute of Physiology at the University of Pisa, Dr. Willis returned to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School as an Assistant Professor of Anatomy. He became Professor and Chairman of Anatomy in 1964 and Professor of Physiology in 1969. Dr. Willis joined the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1970 as Chief of the Division of Comparative Neurobiology.

A past president of both the Society for Neuroscience and the American Pain Society, Dr. Willis is the author of more than 350 peer-reviewed publications and presentations. He has been a member of a number of editorial boards and task forces, serving as Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroscience. Dr. Willis’ research focuses on the structure and function of the vertebrate spinal cord and brain stem.