Dr Pedro Beltran-Alvarez

PhD FHEA

Senior Lecturer in Health and Climate Change

Role at Hull York Medical School

My role at HYMS comprises of biochemical research at the interface between human health and planetary health, and teaching in a variety of programmes. In particular, I'm the co-Director of a new MSc Health and Climate Change where we explore the links between human health and climate change, the biggest health threat facing humanity (WHO 2021).

Biography

Pedro did his PhD at the University of Bristol (2004-2007) funded by a Marie Curie grant from the EU. After a short stage in the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL, Heidelberg, 2007-2009), he joined the Cardiovascular Research Centre at the University of Girona (2009), where he gained a Sara Borrell Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Spanish Government (2011-2014). Pedro then joined the University of Hull in 2015 as a Lecturer, becoming a Senior Lecturer at HYMS in 2022.

Research

Research Mission: to investigate the relevance of protein post-translational modifications in the biological response to environmental changes, with a focus on human health.

Recent and current externally funded projects:

  1. Role of arginine methylation of cardiac troponin I in cardiovascular disease, funded by The Hull and East Riding Cardiac Trust (HERCTF), £29,875. January-December 2019. Link to HERCTF: https://sites.google.com/view/hull-east-riding-cardiac-trust
  2. Developing tissue-on-chip technology as a platform to measure the response of glioblastoma to established therapy and novel drugs (GBM-on-chip), funded by the Yorkshire Brain Tumour Charity (YBTC), £79,987.75, 2020-2023. Link to YBTC: www.btrs.org.uk
  3. Measuring novel biomarkers of tumours, Yorkshire Brain Tumour Charity, £18,000, 2021-2023.
  4. Investigating novel cardiovascular biomarkers in the hair of cardiac patients, Hull and East Riding Cardiac Trust Fund, £19,430, 2022-2023. Internally funded projects: the Happy Chemical Cluster! https://happychemical.wordpress.hull.ac.uk/
Teaching

Pedro is the co-Director of a new MSc Health and Climate Change. He also contributes to teaching in BSc Biomedical Science and a number of MSc programmes e.g. MSc Environmental Change, Management and Monitoring.

Publications
Postgraduate research supervision

Pedro proudly supervises students interested in biochemistry and protein post-translational modifications, in a variety of systems from cardiovascular to climate change models.

Current PG students include:

  • Alistair Marsden (3rd year PhD student), who is interested in cardiovascular disease
  • Lauric Feugere (3rd year PhD student, second supervisor), who is interested in stress signalling in fish in the context of climate change
  • Antonia Barry (2nd year PhD student)
  • Quentin Rodriguez (2nd year PhD student)
  • Tom Francis (1st year PhD student, second supervisor)
  • Ed Gilbert, (1st year PhD student, second supervisor)


MSc by Thesis students

Past supervision as PI: Dr Donatus Onwuli (graduated 2018), Dr Sabrina Samuel (graduated 2021).

External roles

Member of the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission

Editor, Amino Acids (Springer) (Environmental Science)External PhD thesis examiner