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Dr Hugh Montgomery is Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at University College London (UCL), where he also directs the Centre for Human Health and Performance. He is a broadcaster, fiction author, scientist and clinician.
He still works clinically, caring for patients in an Intensive Care Unit in North London. Here, he had a frontline role in caring for Covid patients. He is also on the Council of the UK Intensive Care Society, chaired the UK National Emergency Covid Critical care Committee, consulted for an international pharmaceutical company on novel vaccine development, and was the international coordinator for trials of a novel therapy.
In his research capacity, Hugh Montgomery has published over 800 scientific papers, several in Nature. He was the first to report and describe the тАШgene for human fitnessтАЩ. His research has addressed cardiac growth, muscle wasting, bone and muscle response to exercise, and adaptation to low oxygen levels: he was the research lead for the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition of 2007, and co-reported the first genes for evolutionary selection in response to high altitude. He has helped define the factors which influence survival in extreme environments, and also in intensive care: whether survivors are born, or made. He identified a genetic element which changes the chance of surviving critical illness by five-fold.
Hugh has an interest in Artificial Intelligence as applied to Health, and has worked with Google Deepmind and Google Health.
In innovation, Hugh holds patents for new metabolic therapies, (for cancer wasting and prevention of injury in stroke); a new technology for patient hydration; a novel mask for the removal of pollutants; and a new asthma inhaler. He chaired the board of Cambridge-based adaptive learning company Obrizum. He chaired the board of a biotech startup, and consults in the pharma and biotech sectors.
Hugh Montgomery has a 24 year track record in the field of environment and health. He chaired the last two Lancet Commissions on Human Health and Climate Change, and has written and lectured extensively on the subject. He now co-chairs the 47-country, 52-institute international Lancet Countdown on Climate Change, which reports annually. He was appointed Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and London Leader by LondonтАЩs Sustainable Development Commission, having attended many of the international тАШCOPтАЩ climate negotiations, and created the childrenтАЩs climate education Project Genie.
He organised the Royal College of Physicians first meeting on Climate and Health, was a founder member of the UK Climate and Health Alliance, and helped create the International Alliance on the same subject. He organised the first International Meeting on Climate, Health and Security in 2009. In 2023, Hugh Montgomery founded тАШReal ZeroтАЩ, a non-profit designed to address the climate crisis.
In media, Hugh Montgomery has is a published author of award-winning childrenтАЩs books (тАШThe Voyage of the Arctic TernтАЭ and тАЬCloudsailorsтАЭ) and of best-selling thrillers including тАЬControlтАЭ. He has hosted documentaries and appeared frequently across print and broadcast media. He delivered the five Royal Institution Christmas Lectures broadcast over Christmas 2007.
Hugh was previously a commercial and archaeological diver, who was part of the team which raised Henry VIIIтАЩs flagship the Mary Rose (which sank in 1545). He helped salvage a 2500 year old Etruscan wreck.
Hugh is also an experienced ultramarathon runner and mountaineer (European Alps, Andes, and Himalayas). And he still holds the World Underwater Piano Playing Record!
In January 2022, Hugh Montgomery was appointed Officer of the Order of British Empire (OBE) for services to intensive care medicine and climate change.
