A career dedicated to improving outcomes for people living with motor neuron disease through research, clinical leadership and innovation.
Professor Dame Pam Shaw has been at the forefront of neuroscience in Sheffield for more than two decades. Appointed Professor of Neurology at the University of Sheffield in 2000, she now leads the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), one of the UK’s leading centres for research into motor neuron disease (MND) and other neurodegenerative conditions. Until recently, she also served as Director of the NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre, stepping down after seven years in line with her belief that leadership roles benefit from renewal and fresh perspectives. “I’m not a believer in somebody staying in a role for too long,” she says, “it’s important to bring fresh thinking and new people into leadership.”
Her journey into medicine was not straightforward. Growing up partly in Kuwait, she returned to the UK for secondary education at a boarding school in Northumberland that focused more on languages and the arts than on the sciences required for medical training. With no A-level Biology course available at her school, Pam faced a potential setback on her path to medicine. Undaunted, she took matters into her own hands and mastered the subject independently and later completed an intensive year of physics and chemistry before applying to Newcastle Medical School. “I just decided that if I wanted to do medicine, I would have to make it happen,” she recalls.
After qualifying, she trained in neurology in Newcastle at a time when on-call commitments were extensive and demanding, covering large parts of the North of England. “It was busy, but it was excellent training,” she says, “you saw everything, and nothing really phased you after a couple of years.”
It was during these early clinical years that she encountered the profound challenges faced by people living with motor neuron disease. The speed and severity of the condition, combined with the limited treatment options available at the time, left a lasting impression. “I always dreaded receiving test results for a patient who had been diagnosed with MND because I knew that when I shared those results I couldn’t provide any hope,” she explains, “we knew very little, and we could do very little. I felt we had to try to change that.” Rather than turning away from one of medicine’s most distressing diagnoses, she chose to focus her career on it.
Pam began building a research programme dedicated to understanding and treating MND. The University of Sheffield decided to invest in neuroscience and Pam which created the opportunity to expand that work. With strong backing, she helped establish and grow an academic neurology department that would later evolve into SITraN. “In Sheffield, people really got behind building neuroscience,” she says, “that support has made all the difference.”
Today, SITraN brings together scientists and clinicians under one roof, working across disciplines to accelerate the development of new treatments. “We’re trying to harness all the exciting developments in neuroscience and translate them into human benefit,” Professor Shaw explains. While MND remains a central focus, research at the institute also addresses Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and the biology of ageing.
Teams use a range of advanced models, from fruit flies and zebrafish to mouse systems and patient-derived motor neurons created from reprogrammed skin cells. Drug discovery and gene therapy platforms aim to move promising findings rapidly towards clinical application, in close partnership with colleagues at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. “Having scientists and clinicians in the same building, talking to each other every day, is incredibly powerful,” she adds, “it keeps the focus on the needs of patients.”
This translational approach has already had significant global impact. Sheffield-led clinical trials provided the evidence that non-invasive ventilation improves both survival and quality of life for people with MND, establishing a treatment that is now standard practice worldwide. “Providing that evidence was crucial,” Pam said, “it makes a dramatic difference to how people feel and how long they live.” Current work spans the development of disease-modifying therapies and practical innovations to ease the burden of symptoms, including collaborations with engineers to design assistive technologies such as a robotic glove to restore hand function. “We’re tackling the problems patients face one by one,” she explains.
Although MND remains incurable, progress is tangible. A growing pipeline of therapies is moving through preclinical development, supported by partnerships with biotech companies and national research funding. “If we can slow the disease down and extend good quality life, that is a huge step forward,” she says, “it would make the condition far less frightening for families.”
Alongside her research leadership, Professor Shaw remains committed to supporting the next generation of clinical academics. She is open about the challenges of combining NHS clinical responsibilities with university research, particularly during early career stages when funding pressures and personal commitments can coincide. Strong mentorship, collaboration and resilience, she believes, are essential to tackling these challenges. Pam said: “But I’ve never been bored in my career. Combining research and clinical work gives you enormous variety and the opportunity to make a real difference.”
Beyond her professional life, she maintains wide-ranging interests, including languages, travel, reading, “I always have a novel on the go”, and swimming. A former French A-level student, she hopes to learn another language in the future. Pam is also a keen gardener: “My office is full of orchids and my garden's full of David Austin roses.” Also a keen animal lover, Pam and her husband have two cats and a spaniel.
More than twenty-five years after arriving in Sheffield, Professor Shaw continues to lead a research community united by a shared purpose. “There’s nothing more satisfying,” she reflects, “than making a discovery and seeing it translate into something that genuinely improves human lives.”