Prof. Nicholas Franks

Anaesthesia & Neuroprotection Research

Imperial College London / UCLH

Professor of Biophysics & Anaesthetics at Imperial; pioneer in xenon gas neuroprotection research.

Professor Nicholas Peter Franks FRS is Professor of Biophysics and Anaesthetics at Imperial College London, internationally recognised for foundational work on the mechanisms of general anaesthesia and the neuroprotective properties of xenon.

Education & training: BSc and PhD at King’s College London, followed by academic appointments at Imperial culminating in a personal chair in 1993.

Research focus: Cellular and network actions of anaesthetics, including seminal work on NMDA receptor modulation and two-pore potassium channels, and translational studies showing xenon’s neuroprotection.

Impact & translation: Patents and collaborative programmes on xenon as a clinical neuroprotectant, with high-impact publications in Nature, Anesthesiology and related journals.

Teaching & mentorship: Long-standing supervision of PhD and clinical fellows and leadership in anaesthesia science education at Imperial.

Selected publications: Landmark papers on xenon anaesthesia and neuroprotection and mechanistic anaesthesia biology widely cited across perioperative neuroscience.