Derek M Yellon PhD, DSc (UK), DSc (UCT), FRCP (Hon), FACC, FESC, FAHA, is Professor of Molecular & Cellular Cardiology at University College London (UCL) & Director of the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute at UCL Hospitals & Medical School. He is also Programme Director (Cardiology & Diabetes) for the NIHR-UCLH Biomedical Research Centre.
He is past Vice President of the British Cardiovascular Society and past Chairman of the Cellular Biology Working Group of the European Society of Cardiology as well as past member of the World Council of the International Society for Heart Research. He was recently elected to Department of Health’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) as a Senior Investigator as well as a member of the College of Senior Investigators. In 1994 he was awarded a DSc for his “substantial contribution to the knowledge of cardiovascular disease and treatment”. In 2013 been 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 myocardial protection.
Professor Yellon was instrumental in establishing the 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 in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town. He also holds Honorary Professorships at the University of South Alabama in the USA, and the North China Coal Medical University in China.
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.
He is on the editorial board of a number of major Cardiovascular Journals and has published in excess of 500 full papers and edited 23 books. He runs a translational research Institute with his main area of interest including; myocardial protection, the pathophysiology of cardioprotection in the setting of diabetes, ischaemia/reperfusion injury, molecular aspects of adaptation to ischaemic injury and myocardial conditioning in both the basic and clinical arena.