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• PhD (1987)
• BSc (Hons) (1982)

Professor Hewison is currently Professor of Molecular Endocrinology in the Department of Metabolism and Systems Science at the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡. He gained his PhD in Biochemistry from Guy’s Hospital Medical School London and then spent nine years at University College London. He then moved to the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ where he established the UK’s major vitamin D research group, leading to an appointment as Professor of Molecular Endocrinology in 2004. In 2005 he joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Los Angeles but was then recruited to neighbouring UCLA at the end of 2007 as Professor-in-Residence. In September 2014 Professor Hewison returned to The University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ to join the newly-established IMSR, becoming Director of the IMSR from 2022-2024.

Professor Hewison has published over 280 peer-reviewed manuscripts focused on various facets of steroid hormone endocrinology, and vitamin D in particular. He has previously held various prominent external positions including the Chair of the and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Cell Biochemistry and Function and a major book on Vitamin D. Professor Hewison has mentored numerous PhD students, and postdoctoral and clinical fellows, and he was Molecular Medicine Module Lead and Year 3 Tutor for the Birmingham Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMedSc) course for several years.

• BMedSc 3rd Year (Molecular Medicine)
• BClinSc intercalating (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism)
• MBChB 1st Year (Endocrinology)
• BDS, Dentistry (Endocrinology)
• MPharm, Pharmacy – (Endocrinology)

• Professor Hewison has supervised 23 PhD students and 3 MSc students

Vitamin D is sub-optimal for most UK residents. In 2016 the Scientific Advisory Council on Nutrition recommended supplementation on a national scale to tackle vitamin D-deficiency and associated bone disease. Vitamin D also exerts extra-skeletal effects, and this may impact an array of common human diseases. The over-arching aim of my research is to mechanistically define a role for vitamin D in human health.

My group has identified new immunomodulatory effects of vitamin D mediated via localized intracrine/paracrine mechanisms independent of classical skeletal vitamin D endocrinology. We have shown that antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects of vitamin D correlate better with serum levels of inactive 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25D) than active 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25D). 25D is the major circulating form of vitamin D so that 25D status can potently influence immune function. Over the last 20 years, using human studies and mouse models, my group has been at the forefront of studies of vitamin D and immune function.

In the last five years this has included studies of vitamin D and COVID-19, but we have also pioneered new work on the role of vitamin D as a key regulator of immunometabolism, and the impact of vitamin D-deficiency on pregnancy outcomes, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis and sarcopenia. Our work has provided researchers worldwide with the mechanistic rationale for the myriad clinical studies that have linked vitamin D-deficiency with human health problems.

The over-arching objective of our work is to answer a simple question: Is serum 25D concentration alone an accurate reflection of vitamin D function in vivo?

Our work has shown that the answer to this question is no. Instead, we now know that other health and disease pathways interface with vitamin D to provide a disease- or patient-specific profile for optimal vitamin D. Key factors, outlined above, that contribute to this profile are vitamin D binding protein (DBP), fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23), and tissue microbiota. Our recent work has also shown that our perspective on vitamin D is limited by the exclusive use of 25D as a marker of vitamin D function. We are now leading the world in demonstrating that the broader vitamin D ‘metabolome’ provides a more meaningful insight into vitamin D bioactivity.  Our overall aim is to demonstrate that many health responses to vitamin D are not simply dependent on the basic building block of vitamin D function - serum 25D. A recent exciting example of this is our collaborative project with Prof. David Hodson at the University of Oxford that has identified a new role for DBP as a regulator of islet function and diabetes pathophysiology.

I am proud that my group at UoB is the leading vitamin D research team in the UK, with a huge global impact (my work has been cited nearly 50,000 times) and many productive collaborations to take our research legacy forward.

Research Centres and Groups