Mike Grocott

Mike Grocott is professor of anaesthesia and critical care at the University of Southampton and a consultant in critical care medicine at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust. He co-founded and now directs the UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Environmental Medicine and has led a number of high altitude medical research projects. Notably, in 2007, he led the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, the largest systematic field study of hypobaric hypoxia to date, with over 200 subjects studied at Everest Base Camp and physiological measurements up to 8400 metres.

Hugh Montgomery

Hugh Montgomery is Professor of Intensive Care medicine at University College, London (UCL), where he also directs the Institute for Human Health and Performance.

His work has focussed (although not exclusively) on the use of genetic tools to understand human physiological responses to environmental stimuli, as a means to explore their dysregulation in complex disease states. He thus reported the first association of a genetic variant with human physical performance. He has since described the role of genetic variants in influencing the human cardiac, metabolic and musculoskeletal responses to exercise. In systems biology, his work has explored the roles of tissue and cellular renin-angiotensin systems in health and disease. He also has a strong interest in the human adaptive response to hypoxia- being science lead for the 2007 Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition, and publishing on the population genetic aspects of high-altitude adaptation. He has authored over 160 peer-reviewed papers.