Professor Ragnhildur Káradóttir

Ragnhildur Thóra Káradóttir, currently the director of the MS Society Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair, did her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Iceland.  For her postgraduate training, she entered the Wellcome Trust 4 year PhD Programme in Neuroscience, at UCL, where she did her PhD with Prof. David Attwell. Immediately, after her PhD she was awarded a Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship of the Royal Society, and in 2011 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Career Development Research Fellowship.

Since establishing her lab she has been awarded a number of awards, most recently the Lister Institute Research Prize (one of 5 in the UK), the Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (one of 5 worldwide, first time given outside of USA) and an ERC consolidator award.  In 2015 she was elected to the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence (one of 20 in Europe) and in 2017 awarded the Fabiane Carvalho Miranda International Prize for the best paper published in the years 2015-2017 in myelin biology and MS related research.

Her main research interest is to understand how neuronal activity can regulate oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) differentiation and myelin plasticity in health and disease. Her new line of research interest is to determine the changes in myelin and myelin repair throughout the lifespan. 

• 2006 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Neuroscience from University of London.
• Thesis title: Neurotransmitter signalling to oligodendrocytes
• 2001 Admission to the 4-year PhD Programme in Neuroscience at University College London
• 2000 BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Iceland, 1st Class. Research project: Role of melatonin in Seasonal Affective Disorder

• 2021 Director of the Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair
• 2011 Wellcome Trust Career Development Research Fellow
• 2007 Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow of the Royal Society held in Dept. of Veterinary Medicine University of Cambridge
• 2006 Postdoctoral research fellow with Prof. David Attwell, Dept. Physiology University College London
• 2001- Wellcome Trust PhD student on 4-year PhD in Neuroscience, Department of Physiology 2005 University College London