Professor Julian Paton
Julian Paton studied at the University of Birmingham, UK (BSc, 1984) and University of London (PhD, 1987). Post-doctoral training was at the Royal Free Hospital (London), EI Dupont de Nemours (USA), University of Washington, Seattle (USA), and as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Göttingen (Germany). In 1994, he was awarded a British Heart Foundation Fellowship, which he took up at the University of Bristol, UK, and awarded his Chair in Cardiovascular Physiology in 2001. In 2017, he transferred to the University of Auckland where he directs a multi-disciplinary research programme involving basic and clinical scientists with the aim of finding novel clinical therapeutic approaches for cardiovascular diseases. He is Director of a new heart centre (Manaaki Manawa) combining scientists at the University of Auckland and local hospitals. He is Co-Director of a national Centre of Research Excellence called Pūtahi Manawa which aims to work with the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand to improve heart health equity. He is also the chief scientific officer for Ceryx Medical Ltd – a spin out company testing a new pacemaker for heart failure.
Julian has trained 27 PhD students, published 430 scientific papers and given plenary lectures around the world. His work has generated numerous patents and led to clinical trials in patients with high blood pressure and heart disease. He has been a recipient of numerous national and international prizes and, most recently, was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi. He holds honorary professorial positions at The William Harvey Institute, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, the Department of Physics, University of Bath, and the Department of Physiology, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
During his Visiting Fellowship he will be writing a review on medical devices and genetic approaches for treating heart disease with Professor David Paterson, as well as running experimental studies that is examining a new drug to prevent heart arrhythmias. He is married to Dr Julia Escardo-Paton (paediatric ophthalmologist) and has two children (Sebastian and Eva). In his spare time he enjoys gardening and restoring old Land Rover’s from the late 1940’s.
