Antony Galione is a pharmacologist whose work has helped discover new calcium signalling pathways.  He established the concept of multiple calcium mobilizing messengers which link cell surface stimuli to release of internal calcium stores, and identified their target channels and organelles.  This has enhanced our understanding of how calcium as a ubiquitous cellular regulator may control a myriad of cellular processes with precision.

He established that cyclic ADP-ribose regulates calcium-induced calcium release and globalization of calcium signals, and that NAADP is a ubiquitous trigger for initiating and coordinating calcium signals, often involving communication between organelles at contact sites.

By developing novel pharmacological, molecular and physiological approaches, he has demonstrated that these messengers and their targets regulate many fundamental pathophysiological cellular processes as diverse as Ebola infection, fertilization and embryo development, cardiac contractility, T cell activation and neuronal excitability. The discovery of lysosomes as calcium stores mobilized by NAADP has identified an entirely new signalling role for these organelles in health and disease.

Antony was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2010, and headed Oxford University’s Department of Pharmacology from 2006 until 2015.