Rate My Professor Fiona McDonald

Professor Fiona McDonald is a Professor in the Department of Physiology within the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Otago. She obtained her BSc from the University of Otago and DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1992, with a thesis on the role of FGF-4 in mouse development. Following her doctorate, she conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Iowa from 1993 to 1996. Returning to the University of Otago, she advanced through the academic ranks and was promoted to full Professor effective 1 February 2020. McDonald served as Head of the Department of Physiology from January 2018 to January 2022. She currently holds leadership roles as Deputy Head of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences and Director of Health Sciences First Year. Additionally, she leads the McDonald Lab, one of eight membrane and ion transport research laboratories in the Department of Physiology.

McDonald's research over more than 30 years centers on the trafficking and regulation of the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC), critical for sodium absorption in the kidney and blood pressure regulation. Her lab investigates how ubiquitin pathway proteins such as Nedd4, Nedd8, and XIAP, as well as COMMD family proteins including COMMD1 and COMMD10, control ENaC surface expression and recycling via sorting nexins, retromer, and retriever complexes. Recent projects explore ENaC's roles in breast cancer, including α-ENaC overexpression reducing proliferation and migration in MDA-MB-231 cells, δ-ENaC expression in human arteries linked to hypertension, and impacts on HER2 breast cancer lines, drug response, and immune modulation. Key publications include 'Mechanism by which Liddle's syndrome mutations increase activity of a human epithelial Na+ channel' (Cell, 1995), 'Cloning and expression of the beta- and gamma-subunits of the human epithelial sodium channel' (American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology, 1995), 'Disruption of the β subunit of the epithelial Na+ channel in mice: Hyperkalemia and neonatal death associated with a pseudohypoaldosteronism phenotype' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1999), 'Epithelial sodium channel δ subunit is expressed in human arteries and has potential association with hypertension' (Hypertension, 2022), and 'The epithelial sodium channel has a role in breast cancer cell proliferation' (Breast Cancer Research & Treatment, 2022). She received the Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholar Award in 2011 to study COMMD10 at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Hill Tinsley Medal in 2005 from the New Zealand Association of Scientists for outstanding physiological research. McDonald teaches courses such as HUBS 191, PHSL 233, PHSL 343, and PHSL 473, and delivered her Inaugural Professorial Lecture on ENaC control pathways in 2021.