OpenLearn Profile

Duncan Banks

Duncan Banks

Department of Life, Health & Chemical Sciences

Professional biography
Duncan Banks is Head of Scholarship at the School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences at The Open University. Duncan Banks is Head of Scholarship in the School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences In STEM. Since joining the Open University in 2000 he has either chaired or been a team member of modules that have involved the human body including (as a sample), Human Biology, Infectious Diseases, Diabetes Care, Understanding cardiovascular diseases and Understanding cancers. Duncan trained as a physiologist at Leeds University and then obtained a PhD in Neuroscience specialising in the action of anaesthetics on the central nervous system. His research has encompassed the areas of hormones and the control of blood pressure, pain and its management and lately how the brain produces new neurons in adulthood and how understanding this mechanism may one day be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Duncan is a STEM Ambassador and is involved in public engagement from the local to international level. He has been a director and trustee of the British Neuroscience Association and is a member of the US-based Society for Neuroscience’s Public Engagement Committee who recently created the brainfacts.org project.