Professor Mark Hanson is the founding Director of the Institute of Developmental Sciences at the University of Southampton, Director of the Division of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease in the University's School of Medicine and British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiovascular Science.



Hanson's research concerns several aspects of development and health, ranging from how the environment during our development (before and after birth) can affect the risk of chronic diseases -- such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity -- to population studies aimed at the early identification of risk, so that timely preventative interventions can be made. His Division works on these problems in both developed and developing countries in many parts of the world.



Hanson is much involved in the public understanding of science and how evolutionary thinking applies to human biology and medicine. His recent books co-authored with Peter Gluckman include Mismatch – the lifestyle diseases timebomb (2006), and Principles of Evolutionary Medicine (2009) both published by OUP.

Hanson received a B.A. (Honours) in Animal Physiology from St John's College, Oxford in 1971, a CertEd from the University of Leeds in 1974, and a D.Phil. in Physiology from St. John's College, Oxford in 1979.