Margaret Fairlie Lecture by Professor Doreen Cantrell " A Life Studying T cells"

The Lecture is named after Professor Margaret Fairlie, who became the first women to hold a professorial chair in a Scottish University. She was appointed Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1940, although her appointment to a chair was delayed, in part due to opposition to granting a chair to a woman. A popular figure with staff and students, she was noted for her warm hospitality. Margaret Fairlie was born in Angus in 1891 and grew up near Arbroath. In 1910 she matriculated at University College, Dundee to study at the Conjoint Medical School, marking the start of an association that would last most of her life. After graduating in 1915, she held various posts in Dundee, Perth, Edinburgh and Manchester, before returning to Dundee in 1919 to run a consultant practice for gynaecology. She started teaching at the Medical School the following year. In the 1920s, Margaret Fairlie joined the staff of Dundee Royal Infirmary (DRI) becoming head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1936. She retired in 1956 but retained a close connection with the University and DRI, until her death in 1963.

Biography

Doreen Cantrell studied Zoology at The University College of Wales in Aberystwyth and then did a PhD at the University of Nottingham. She had a postdoctoral fellowships at Dartmouth Medical School in the USA and at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories (ICRF) in London, She established the Lymphocyte Activation Laboratory at ICRF in 1987, In 2002 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship to move to Life Sciences at the University of Dundee. Doreen works on the molecular mechanisms that control the function of T lymphocytes, key cells of the adaptive immune response. She has published >200 papers on this subject. Her laboratory has made fundamental contributions to defining how signal transduction pathways controlled by antigen receptors and cytokines control T cell metabolism, T cell trafficking, T cell growth, proliferation, and differentiation. Cantrell has combined leadership of her research group with university roles and from 2010- 2016 was Head of the College of Life Sciences and Vice Principal of the University of Dundee. From 2007-2016 she established and directed a Wellcome Trust PhD program for Clinicians in Dundee. She initiated and led the University of Dundee Athena Swan Award (2011-2016). She secured and directed the Wellcome Trust Institute Strategic support fund (2012-2022) and secured and currently directs the Dundee Wellcome Trust funded Research Culture initiative.

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