Derek M Yellon PhD, DSc (UK), DSc (SA), FRCP, FACC, FESC, FAHA, is Professor of Molecular & Cellular Cardiology at University College London (UCL) and Director of the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute at UCL & UCLH.
He is past Programme Director (Cardiology & Diabetes) for the National Institute for Health Research-UCLH-Biomedical Research Centre and past Vice President of the British Cardiovascular Society. In 1994 he was awarded a DSc from the University of Bath for his “substantial contribution to the knowledge of cardiovascular disease and treatment”. In 2013 he was awarded a second Doctor of Science (honorius causa) degree from the University of Cape Town in recognition of his distinguished basic and clinical research in the mechanisms underlying the phenomena of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury and cardioprotection,
He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; the American College of Cardiology; the European Society of Cardiology; the International Society for Heart Research and the American Heart Association.
Professor Yellon was instrumental in establishing a second Hatter Cardiovascular Institute at the Medical School of the University of Cape Town. In recognition of these achievements he was, in 1997, made an Hon Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town. He also holds Honorary Chairs at the University of South Alabama in the USA, and the North China Coal Medical University in China.
He is on the editorial board of a number of major Cardiovascular Journals and has published in excess of 550 full papers and edited 23 books. He runs a translational research Institute with his main area of interest being the pathophysiology of acute myocardial infarction. This relates specifically cardioprotection in the setting of diabetes, ischaemia/reperfusion injury, molecular aspects of adaptation to ischaemic injury and myocardial pre and postconditioning in both the basic and clinical arena.