Judy Hirst

Judy Hirst is a British scientist specialising in mitochondrial biology. She is Director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge.

Early life and education Hirst grew up in Lepton near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and attended King James's School and Greenhead College, Huddersfield. She studied for an M.A. in chemistry at St John's College, Oxford,

Career and research Following her D.Phil., Hirst held a fellowship at the Scripps Research Institute in California, before moving to Cambridge. and since 2020 has been director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit having previously been its assistant director (2011-2014) and deputy director (2014-2020). Her main research interest is mitochondrial complex I. and working with Justin Fedor, published research on mitochondrial supercomplexes in Cell Metabolism. Recent research in her team includes a study, published in May 2020 by the American Chemical Society Synthetic Biology on 'Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cellular energy currency, is essential for life. The ability to provide a constant supply of ATP is therefore crucial for the construction of artificial cells in synthetic biology' which has developed a ' minimal system for cellular respiration and energy regeneration'.

Awards and honours Early in her career, Hirst was awarded EMBO Young Investigator Award (2001) and Young Investigator Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry Inorganic Biochemistry Discussion Group (2006).

Hirst was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. She was awarded an Interdisciplinary Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the same year. In 2019, Hirst was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences with the citation:

Hirst was awarded Keilin Memorial Lecture and Medal in 2020 for research which: