Bonnie Ann Wallace

Wallace's other main research field is the study of membrane proteins, focusing on ion channel structures, specifically voltage-gated sodium channels. Her lab solved the first crystal structure of a sodium channel in the open conformation, and the first such structures with pharmaceutical drugs bound into them providing key information of how drugs interact with such proteins and the specific amino acids in these proteins that are responsible for disease states, amongst many other significant papers revealing the structures, functions and dynamics of channel-drug interactions. For her "pioneering work" developing biophysical methods and bioinformatics tools to enable research on ion channel/drug interactions, Wallace was awarded the 2020 Khorana Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

In 2020 Wallace won the Khorana Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The citation reads:

In 2017 a Special Issue:Shining Light on Membrane Proteins of the European Biophysics Journal was published in her name honouring her 65th birthday.

In 2016 she was elected an Honorary Member of the British Biophysical Society.

In 2016 Wallace was elected a Fellow of the (U.S.) Biophysical Society.

In 2010 she was elected a Fellow of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

In 2010 Wallace was awarded the AstraZeneca Award from the Biochemical Society (UK)

Wallace has two main branches of research, the first of these being on the development of techniques, applications and methods for circular dichroism spectroscopy and particularly synchrotron radiation circular dichroism (SRCD) spectroscopy. Her position as the major figure behind the advancement of SRCD, through performing "proof of principle" experiments and novel cutting edge studies on membrane proteins lead to her receiving the 2009 Interdisciplinary Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the 2010 AstraZeneca Award from the Biochemical Society (UK).

In 2009 she was awarded a special fellowship for the Promotion of Science from the Japan Society, U.K.

In 2009 Wallace was awarded the Interdisciplinary Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry

In 2004 she was a distinguished visiting professor at Tzu Chi University and Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

In 1999 Wallace was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

In 1998 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

In 1995 she was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Biology (FIBiol)

In 1990 she was named one of the twelve "Hot Young Scientists" by Fortune Magazine.

In 1985 Wallace received a Camille Dreyfus teacher-scholar award "to support the research and teaching careers of talented young faculty in the chemical sciences."

After her postdoctoral training Wallace took up an assistant professorship at Columbia University, N.Y. Medical School in the department of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, now part of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Whilst at Columbia she won the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award of the Biophysical Society (1984/85) and the following year was promoted to Associate Professor. She moved from Columbia to Rensselaer Polytechnic as full Professor of Chemistry to head the new, at that time, Center for Biophysics. In 1990, Wallace was awarded a Fogarty Senior Fellowship enabling her to take a sabbatical to visit and work in the department of crystallography at Birkbeck College, University of London, U.K.. This was to extend her knowledge of crystallography to add to the techniques she was utilizing for the study of membrane proteins. Shortly after her return to the USA she was offered a position in the Department and moved her lab to the UK in 1991. Between 1999 and 2006 while still at Birkbeck, she was also Director of the Centre for Protein and Membrane Structure and Dynamics (CPMSD) at Daresbury Laboratory. Since 2009 she has been co-Director of the Protein Circular Dichroism Data Bank.

In 1984/85 Wallace became an inaugural receipient of the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award from the Biophysical Society given to a woman who "holds very high promise or has achieved prominence while developing the early stages of a career in biophysical research"; this is considered "one of the top national honors" in biophysics.

In 1979 she was awarded an Irma T. Hirschl and Monique Weill-Caulier Research Award to enable her research programme at Columbia.

In 1977 Wallace received a Jane Coffin Childs fellowship to pursue her postdoctoral research.

Bonnie Ann Wallace, FRSC (born 10 August 1951) is a British and American biophysicist and biochemist. She is a professor of molecular biophysics in the department of biological sciences, formerly the department of crystallography, at Birkbeck College, University of London, U.K.