David Paterson

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 established that oxidative stress plays a major role in uncoupling pre-synaptic and post synaptic signalling. His group developed methods for targeting the enzyme involved in making nitric oxide-cGMP using a gene transfer approach involving cell specific viral vectors and FRET sensors to study the physiology of this messenger in normal and diseased hearts.  This work is now being applied to a human iPSC 'disease in a dish' model where sympathetic neurons and cardiac cells are studied in mono/co-culture from patients with known cardiac channelopathies (CPVT/LQT) to test the idea these cardiac pathologies are also diseases of the autonomic nervous system.

David Paterson completed his doctoral studies (D.Phil, New College 1989) in the University Laboratory of Physiology at Oxford having been a graduate of the University of Otago (NZ 1979), and the University of Western Australia (1985). Following a MRC post doc/Junior Research Fellowship (Christ Church) in Oxford and at University of California, San Diego, he was appointed to a BHF lectureship in 1991, then to an established faculty post (University Lecturership) in 1994 and made a Tutorial Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. In 1998 he was made a Reader in Physiology, and in 2002 Professor of Physiology.  In 2005 he received a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Western Australia.

Career. From 2008-16 was Associate Head then Deputy Head (Vice Dean) of the Division of Medical Sciences at Oxford. During this period he Chaired the Divisions Research, Personnel and Education Committees. He has been a member of the executive committee of the BHF Centre of Research Excellence at Oxford, and a member of the national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008 UoA15) and Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014 UoA5) panels. From 2011 to 2016 he served as Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Physiology and was Consulting Editor for Physiology (2016-21). In 2021 he was made a reviewing editor of e-Life.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (2003) and in 2014 was elected an Honorary Fellow of The Royal Society of New Zealand He Ahurei Honore a Te Apārangi.  In 2016 he was appointed Head of Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics at Oxford.  He was elected as an inaugural Fellow of The Physiological Society in 2017.  In 2018 he delivered the Carl Ludwig Distinguished Lecture for the American Physiological Society at Experimental Biology, and  also elected President-elect of The Physiological Society to serve as President from 2020.  In 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physiological Society.  In 2020 he was appointed as a Core Member of the UKRI-BBSRC Bioscience Advisory Panel for an Integrated Understanding of Health Strategy, and in 2021 elected as a member of The Academia Europaea. In 2023 Paterson became the European lead on a Leducq Transatlantic Network of Excellence Award with UCLA on Bioelectronics for Neurocardiology, elected an Honorary Fellow of The Physiological Society and awarded an Honorary Doctorate (HonDUniv) in Medical Sciences from the University of Western Australia.  In 2024 he was elected as Oxford's third Fellow to the Academy of International Union of Physiological Sciences, and in 2025 awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws (HonLLD) from the University of Otago, New Zealand.