Mark Cunningham

Prof. Mark Cunningham is Head of Discipline of Physiology and the Ellen Mayston Bates Professor of Neurophysiology of Epilepsy at Trinity College Dublin. His research is focused on understanding the basis of neurological and psychiatric disease at the level of the neuronal microcircuit and in particular in the context of organised electrical activity generated by the brain.

Prof. Cunningham’s work has been supported by the BBSRC, MRC, Wellcome Trust, Epilepsy Research UK, Action of Hearing Loss, Hadwen Trust, Innovate UK, Wolfson Foundation and The Royal Society. He has had collaborative funding agreements with a number of global pharmaceutical companies and acts as a consultant for Neurexpert, a contract research organisation, that provides specialist electrophysiology and neuroscience expertise and solutions to aid drug discovery and academic research.

Prof. Cunningham currently sits on the Scientific Advisory Committee for Epilepsy Research UK and is a member of the Biomedical Resource and Technology Development Committee at the Wellcome Trust. He is a fellow of the Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation (CASMI). He has also acted on advisory boards and as a consultant to numerous pharmaceutical companies. He is a member of the Physiological Society, British Neuroscience Association and the International League against Epilepsy (ILAE).

Prof. Cunningham obtained his PhD in Physiology from the University of Bristol, examining the impact of anti-epileptic drugs on synaptic function. He then undertook post-doctoral positions on projects focusing on the mechanisms underlying the generation of various types of neuronal oscillations using a combination of electrophysiological, pharmacological and transgenic mouse models. In 2005 he was awarded an RCUK Academic Fellowship at Newcastle University. In 2007 alongside Prof. Miles Whittington he founded the first UK research platform for conducting electrophysiological recordings from live human brain tissue ex vivo in Newcastle with support from the Wolfson Foundation. In 2016 he was appointed as Professor of Neuronal Dynamics at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University and maintains a visiting Professorship at Newcastle University.