Name Hugh Watkins | ||
Hugh Christian Watkins FRS FRCP (born 7 June 1959) is a British cardiologist. He is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, an associate editor of Circulation Research, and was Field Marshal Alexander Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine in the University of Oxford between 1996 and 2013.
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Early life and education
The son of Dr David Watkins, a Norfolk physician, and his wife Gillian Mary, Watkins was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk and the Bart's Hospital Medical School, London, graduating with both Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degrees. In 1984 he gained the Brackenbury & Bourne Prize in General Medicine. He was awarded a PhD from the University of London.
Career and Research
Watkins was a house physician in the Professorial Medical Unit at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1984–1985, then a senior house officer in Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, from 1985 to 1987. He was then briefly a senior house officer in Neurology at St Bartholomew's, before two years as a Registrar in Medicine and Cardiology at St Thomas's Hospital, London, from 1987 to 1989. His next posts were as a Lecturer in Cardiological Sciences at St George's Hospital, London, and as Resident Fellow in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. In 1995 he was appointed an assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and as associate physician at the Brigham & Women's Hospital, and in 1996 as Field Marshal Alexander Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine in the University of Oxford.
Watkins proceeded MRCP in 1987, PhD (London) in 1995,FRCP in 1997, and MD (London) in 1995.
At Oxford, Watkins is the Director of the British Heart Foundation's Molecular Cardiology Laboratory in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and of its Centre of Research Excellence, one of six similar programmes in the United Kingdom. He is an associate editor of the academic journal Circulation Research.
Watkins's main specialism is in molecular genetic analysis of cardiovascular disease, and his most notable work is on the inheritance of heart disease, especially on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and the genetic causes of "sudden cardiac death". He is chairman of an international group which investigates genetic susceptibility to coronary artery disease, which has funding from the European Commission.
In May 2017 Watkins was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Honours and awards
Publications
Personal life
In 1987, Watkins married Elizabeth Bridget Hewett, and they have one son and one daughter. In Who's Who his recreations are stated as "photography and Oriental porcelain".