Skip to main content

Professor Judy Hirst

MA DPhil (Oxford) FRS FMedSci

I am currently Director of the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit (MRC-MBU) at the University of Cambridge. The MRC-MBU aims to understand the fundamental biochemical and biological processes taking place in mitochondria, the powerhouse of the eukaryotic cell, and to learn about the involvement of mitochondria and mitochondrial dysfunction in human diseases - in order to develop new therapies to treat them. My own research combines structural, biochemical and chemical techniques to pioneer studies of energy conversion in complex redox enzymes: how they capture the energy released by a redox reaction to power proton translocation across a membrane, or catalyse the interconversion of chemical bond energy and electrical potential. In particular, I work on the mechanisms of catalysis and reactive oxygen species production by mammalian respiratory complex I (NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase), a megaDalton energy-transducing, mitochondrial redox enzyme of fundamental and medical importance, including determination of its structure by electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM).

Having grown up close to Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, in a village my family have lived in since records began, I studied chemistry at St. John's College Oxford.  Following a D. Phil, also in Oxford, in the group of Fraser Armstrong, I held a Wellcome Trust Prize International Fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, before joining the MRC-MBU in Cambridge.  I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018 and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2019.

Research Interests

I am interested in how complex enzymes convert energy from one form to another. How can redox energy from a chemical reaction be stored as a proton-motive force across a biological membrane then used to generate ATP ? How can an electrochemical potential be used to drive oxidation or reduction of a substrate by an enzyme ? Particular systems of interest are complex I, the first enzyme of the respiratory chain (hence my lab. is at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit) and the reduction of CO2 to formate.

College Position

Professorial Fellow

University Position

Professor of Biological Chemistry and Director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit

College Offices/Posts

Director of Studies in Natural Sciences Chemistry , Sustainability Adviser