Derek M Yellon PhD, DSc (UK), DSc (UCT), FRCP (Hon), FACC, FESC, FAHA, is Professor of Molecular & Cellular Cardiology at University College London (UCL) & Director of the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute at UCL Hospitals & Medical School. He is also Programme Director (Cardiology & Diabetes) for the NIHR-UCLH Biomedical Research Centre.
He is past Vice President of the British Cardiovascular Society and past Chairman of the Cellular Biology Working Group of the European Society of Cardiology as well as past member of the World Council of the International Society for Heart Research. He was recently elected to Department of Health’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) as a Senior Investigator as well as a member of the College of Senior Investigators. In 1994 he was awarded a DSc for his “substantial contribution to the knowledge of cardiovascular disease and treatment”. In 2013 been awarded a second Doctor of Science (honorius causa) degree from the University of Cape Town in recognition of his distinguished basic and clinical research in the mechanisms underlying myocardial protection.
Professor Yellon was instrumental in establishing the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute at the Medical School of the University of Cape Town. In recognition of these achievements he was, in 1997, made an Hon. Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town. He also holds Honorary Professorships at the University of South Alabama in the USA, and the North China Coal Medical University in China.
He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; the American College of Cardiology; the European Society of Cardiology; the International Society for Heart Research and the American Heart Association.
He is on the editorial board of a number of major Cardiovascular Journals and has published in excess of 500 full papers and edited 23 books. He runs a translational research Institute with his main area of interest including; myocardial protection, the pathophysiology of cardioprotection in the setting of diabetes, ischaemia/reperfusion injury, molecular aspects of adaptation to ischaemic injury and myocardial conditioning in both the basic and clinical arena.
John Cunningham is a clinician-scientist holding positions as Professor of Nephrology at University College London Medical School and The Royal Free Hospital and an Honorary Fellowship at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, both in the UK. His early training was in Cambridge (pre-clinical) and Oxford, UK (clinical), with postgraduate training at The University of London and Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, USA under Drs Louis V Avioli and Eduardo Slatopolsky. He has remained an active frontline clinician in both nephrology and internal medicine. John Cunningham was Physician to HM The Queen and was knighted for services to The Royal Family in June 2014.
Academically Professor Cunningham has contributed to the understanding of the effect of acidosis on the bioactivation of vitamin D and described and characterised hysteresis in the parathyroid response to calcium, indicating that parathyroid cells can sense both the direction of change and the absolute concentration of ECF calcium. He subsequently ran research programmes examining the following: control by structurally modified vitamin D metabolites at PTH synthesis and release; the synthesis and release of bone cytokines by osteoblast like cells and the regulation of these by vitamin D metabolites; the location and relevance of the calcium sensing receptor in bone cells; the influence of simulated uraemia on the release of cytokines by bone cells; the factors mediating bone loss following renal transplantation and preventative strategies; the factors that control parathyroid function in vivo, including new vitamin D metabolites and calcimimetic agents. Professor Cunningham’s group has found that new structurally modified metabolites of vitamin D differ markedly in the way they influence the behaviour of both parathyroid cells and bone cells. His group also devised, conducted and published studies of the first effective prophylaxis against bone loss in the post transplant setting. On these and other subjects, Professor Cunningham frequently lectures nationally and internationally, as well as serving on numerous international expert panels and working groups. He is a founding Co-chairman of the Nephrology At The Limits series held under the auspices of University College London, The University of Cape Town, and The Lancet.
