Rate My Professor Brett Graham

Professor Brett Graham is a Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honours and earned his PhD in Human Physiology from the University of Newcastle in 2006. After a two-year postdoctoral position in the Priority Research Centre for Brain and Mental Health Research, he established the Spinal Cord Connections Research Group in 2008, which he leads to this day. Additionally, he chairs the Hunter Medical Research Institute’s Brain Neuromodulation Research Program. Over more than 20 years, Graham has focused his career on elucidating spinal sensory processing mechanisms, particularly those involved in pain signalling. His laboratory employs a range of sophisticated electrophysiological techniques, including single-channel analysis, in vitro and in vivo patch-clamp recordings, calcium imaging, and multielectrode array recordings, often utilizing transgenic mouse models and optogenetics to map spinal cord circuits.

Graham has secured extensive research funding, including multiple National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Australian Research Council (ARC) grants. Recent awards encompass the 2025 ARC Discovery Project 'Reframing the Ascending Spinal Sensory Pathway' and the NHMRC Ideas Grant 'Excitatory PV Cells: A New Switch to Trigger Spinal Pain'. Earlier notable grants include NHMRC funding for 'Excitatory interneurons: a sensory amplifier for pathological pain' (2018, $668,810), 'Spinal processing of sensory signals from the gut' (2014, $554,477), and 'The role of presynaptic inhibition in neuropathic pain' (2013, $482,705). He has published over 86 peer-reviewed papers, accumulating more than 2,200 citations. Key publications include 'Calretinin positive neurons form an excitatory amplifier network in the spinal cord dorsal horn' (eLife, 2019), 'Defining a Spinal Microcircuit that Gates Myelinated Afferent Input: Implications for Tactile Allodynia' (Cell Reports, 2019), 'Diversity of inhibitory and excitatory parvalbumin interneuron circuits in the dorsal horn' (2021), and 'Altered Intrinsic Properties and Inhibitory Connectivity in Aged Parvalbumin-Expressing Dorsal Horn Neurons' (Frontiers in Neural Circuits, 2022). Graham serves on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Physiology (2025-2028) and was recognized for 25 years of service at the University of Newcastle's 2025 Staff Excellence Awards.