Professor Hugh Montgomery

I have a practical and research interest in extreme environment physiology.

I was a keen sports diver as a youth, and held an HSE Pt IV commercial diving licence before studying medicine. I was part of the Mary Rose Diving Team (raising Henry VIII's flagship from the Solent), and also worked extensively abroad, most notably upon an Etruscan vessel sinking in 621BC off the west coast of Italy.

In terms of altitude exposure, I hold a Cat X skydiving qualification, and am also a keen and active mountaineer, having climbed in the Alps, Himalayas, and Andes. I also participate in occasional ultramarathons (100km).

Since graduating from medical school I have accredited at consultant level in cardiology, internal medicine and Intensive Care Medicine and now practice as a consultant intensivist at University College Hospital, London.

In terms of research, I studied for an MD, which I gained in the 1997. Since then, I have led an expanding research group in the department of cardiovascular genetics at University College London. Here my specific interests are in the responses to exercise training; the regulation of metabolic efficiency; inflammatory responses and their role in critical care outcome; skeletal remodelling; and human myocardial growth. This has led to over 100 publications including, amongst others, several in 'Nature', 'Lancet' and 'Circulation'.

I views extreme environment exposure as a unique way of investigating (prospectively) human responses to extreme pathophysiological responses in critical care.