David Paterson completed his doctoral studies (D.Phil)  in physiological sciences at Oxford in the eighties having been a graduate of the University of Otago (NZ), and the University of Western Australia. He received his Doctor of Science (D.Sc) degree from Western Australia in 2005 and was made a Fellow of the Institute of Biology in 2003.  Following an MRC post doc in Oxford and a BHF lectureship he was appointed to a University Lecturership in 1994 and made a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.  He is currently Professor of Physiology and Associate Head of the Division of Medical Sciences, Oxford.  He Chairs the Division's Education Committee, is a member of the executive committee of the BHF Centre of Research Excellence at Oxford, and is a member of a National Research Excellence (REF 2014) panel.  Recently he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Physiology. 

David Paterson leads a research team in the area of cardiac neurobiology.  They are interested in how both branches of the cardiac autonomic nervous system communicate at the end organ level and whether oxidative stress plays a role in uncoupling pre-synaptic and post synaptic signalling.  The endogenous gas nitric oxide is now thought to be a key intermediary in cardiac inter/intracellular signalling, where it has been shown to regulate several ion channels that control cardiac excitability.  His group has developed a method for targeting the enzyme involved in making nitric oxide using a gene transfer approach involving cell specific viral vectors to study the physiology of this messenger in normal and diseased hearts.

Further information can be found at Paterson Research