Annette Catherine Dolphin (1951 – 26 January 2026) was a British scientist who was professor of pharmacology in the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology at University College London (UCL).
Early life and education Dolphin was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England in 1951. She was educated at the University of Oxford, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in biochemistry in 1973, and the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London where she was awarded a PhD in 1977 for research on noradrenaline receptors.
Career and research Dolphin was a leader in the field of neuronal voltage-gated calcium channels. She was distinguished for her work on the regulation of calcium channel trafficking and function, and the modulation of that function by activation of G-protein coupled receptors. Her work on the control of calcium channel trafficking by auxiliary calcium channel subunits was particularly influential. She elucidated the topology and processing of this family of proteins.
She held appointments at the Collège de France, Yale University, the National Institute for Medical Research, St George's, University of London and the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine. She joined University College London as a professor in the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology in 1997.
Death Dolphin died of cancer on 26 January 2026, aged 74. She inherited Lynch syndrome and was treated for three previous cancers throughout her life. She died due to a fourth, duodenal cancer.
Awards and honours Dolphin received a number awards for her research, including the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) Sandoz Prize and the Pfizer Prize in Biology. She was also awarded prize lectures such as the G. L. Brown Prize Lecture of The Physiological Society, the Julius Axelrod Distinguished Lecture in Neuroscience of the University of Toronto, the BPS Gary Price Memorial Lecture and, most recently, the Mary Pickford Lecture of the University of Edinburgh and the Physiological Society Annual Review Prize Lecture in 2015. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 1999 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2015.
Dolphin held the Presidency of the British Neuroscience Association from 2019 to 2021, leading the Association through the challenging years of the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitating its ongoing growth. In 2022 she was elected to become the 2024–2026 President of The Physiological Society. She was also elected to the Council of the Royal Society (2023–25).
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