Director, Robarts Research Institute
Professor, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology,
The University of Western Ontario
Dr. John MacDonald studies the regulation of excitatory synaptic transmission and synaptic plasticity by signal transduction pathways. He has published over 175 scientific papers and articles, and has trained more than 40 graduate students and post-doctoral trainees. His most cited papers have appeared in: Science 1991 (# citations 337) 1993(155) 1999 (223) Nature 1997(182) 1994(141) Neuron 2001 (158) J. Neurophysiol. 1987 (230).
Dr. MacDonald was born in Vancouver, Canada. He received his undergraduate education at the University of British Columbia. He continued his studies at UBC, completing his PhD degree in the Department of Physiology in 1975. He conducted postdoctoral work at the University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom with Dr. G.A. Cottrell (1975; MRC Postdoctoral Fellow). The following year, he began a second fellowship at McGill University, Montreal with Dr. K. Krnjevic (1976; MRC Postdoctoral Fellow). In 1978, he trained at the Laboratory of Neurophysiology (NINCDS, Bethesda, Maryland) with Dr. J.L. Barker (Fogarty Postdoctoral Fellow).
In 1979, Dr. MacDonald moved back to Canada to assume his first academic appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Toronto. He was also a Member of the Playfair Neurosciences Unit at the Toronto Western Hospital. He became Associate Professor of Pharmacology in 1985, and was appointed Associate Professor in Physiology in 1988. He was promoted to Full Professor in 1991, was named the Ernest B. and Leonard B. Smith Professor and in July 2001 became Chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto. In July 2008 Dr. MacDonald moved to London, Ontario to become Director of the Robarts Research Institute, and is a Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Western Ontario. Dr. MacDonald has been involved in numerous professional activities throughout his career. He spent eleven years as a member of MRC and CIHR grant’s committees: Neuroscience or Pharmacology and Toxicology. Dr. MacDonald is married with two children, and lives in Toronto.