in a nutshell
I grew up in Belfast, where I was taught English (and given a love of writing) by the poet Michael Longley. I won an Open Scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge and qualified as a doctor with Honours in 1977. After training in London and Geneva, I moved to Liverpool and built up an internationally renowned research group in diabetes and obesity. Along the way, I wrote 200 scientific papers and authored or edited over 20 medical books, including the prize-winning Textbook of Diabetes. From 2003-8, I was Dean of Medicine at the University of Bristol, where I still teach on the BA in Medical Humanities course.
I've written 5 books for the general reader about the history of medicine and science: Angel of Death: the story of smallpox (2010; shortlisted for the Wellcome Medical Book Prize); Paralysed with Fear: the story of polio (2013); A Monstrous Commotion: the mysteries of Loch Ness (2015); Unravelling the Double Helix: the lost heroes of DNA (2019); and The Impossible Bomb: the hidden history of British scientists and the race to create an atomic weapon (2025).
I’ve served as President of the Anglo-French Medical Society, Vice-President of the European Society for Clinical Investigation and Chair of the Trustees of the Edward Jenner Museum. I play the flute and saxophone in orchestras, a wind quintet and jazz groups.
Caroline and I married in 1983; our children are Tim and Joanna. We set up home next to an old cider orchard in rural Gloucestershire, in a village too small to have a pub or a shop. Caroline died in 2019; here's a video about Caroline's Field, a rewilding project which we've set up in her memory. My new partner is Alison Bell, modern language teacher and fellow musician.