Philip J Atherton

Despite my relatively early career stage, I have been PI or Co-I on successful project grants from UK research councils (MRC, BBSRC), Eurpoean Union (EUFP7), charity (Dunhill Medical Trust) and industrial (Ajinomoto, Abbott Nutrition) sources to the tune of ~£10M. I have published ~80 peer-reviewed articles (H-index 33) and 4 book chapters and my work has placed me in the world's top 5% of cited authors for work in Biology & Biochemistry (source: Thomson Reuters). I have received prestigious early career awards (e.g. American Physiological Society New investigator 2010) and am regularly invited to speak at national (e.g. Physiological Society) and international (e.g. EB, ECSS, ASPEN, ICAAP, A/ESPEN) conferences.

Research synopsis: My past work has focused on the identification of central mechanisms regulating metabolism in human musculoskeletal tissues, and where appropriate, using more tractable in vitro cell or where appropriate, in vivo animal models. Combining molecular biology, stable isotope methodologies and detailed in vivo human physiology, I have been a key part of a team that has discovered a number of fundamental parameters that govern alterations in protein metabolism with age and disease. In particular, I have led the molecular analysis in the majority of my publications and over more recent years in becoming laboratory Principal Investigator, been entirely responsible for grant income, research direction and development of state-of-the-art physiological experiments. The current direction of our laboratories work involves the combining of detailed molecular physiology with the application of carbon/ deuterium stable isotope methodologies and more recently, the integration of OMIC (genomic/ metabolomic) techniques to discover predictors of, and the basis for, musculoskeletal decline in ageing and disease.