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Professor Graham Hitman, MB BS, MD, FRCP

Graham

Professor of Molecular Medicine and Diabetes

Centre: Centre for Genomics and Child Health

Email: g.a.hitman@qmul.ac.uk
Twitter: @g_hitman

Profile

Graham Hitman graduated from University College Hospital Medical School in 1976 and did his clinical training in General Medicine and Diabetes in Kings College and associated Hospitals, St Bartholomew’s Hospital and subsequently The Royal London Hospital. He did his MD research into the genetics of diabetes with Professor David Galton at Barts and was subsequently appointed as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader at the Royal London Hospital Medical College working under Professor RD Cohen. Since 1995 he has been Professor of Molecular Medicine and Diabetes at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. Prof Hitman was director of the Blizard Institute (2013 to 2017) and Editor of Diabetic Medicine (2009-2015).

Centre:  Genomics and Child Health .

Clinical Advisor to Vital Signs Solutions:  https://www.vitalsignssolutions.com/

 

 

 

 

Summary

I am a clinical academic with extensive collaborations internationally and within QMUL

Ongoing research is directed towards

  • Genomics of diabetes and statin response
  • Prevention of diabetes
  • Development of Bayesian AI clinical decision support tools for diagnosis, initial and ongoing management of chronic medical conditions

I currently have 337 peer reviewed publications listed in PubMed. Hitman Google scholar entry (March 2020) shows 50,405 citations and an h-index of 81.

Teaching

Undergraduate and Postgraduate teaching


Supervising 4 PhD students

 

Primary supervisor

Use of Bayesian Networks in clinical decision support systems

 

Co-Supervisor

Molecular pathogenesis of obesity x1

Clinical trials in pregnancy and in the post-partum period x2

 

Research

Research Interests:

Research Interests:

Graham Hitman’s main research interests are the

  • genomics of diabetes,
  • prevention of diabetes and its complications
  • clinical decision theory.

The current focus of his work is the gene environmental interaction in pregnancy and its relation to future cardiometabolic disease in the offspring in South Asian people (previously funded by an FP7 EU grant) and the application of Bayesian models to help inform clinical decision making in gestational diabetes and COVID-19 (funded by EPSRC).

He has led several seminal clinical trials including as one of the principal investigators of the CARDS trial that has influenced the development of current lipid lowering guidelines in diabetes.

He currently has 337 peer reviewed publications listed in PubMed. Hitman Google scholar entry (March 2020) shows 50,405 citations and an h-index of 81.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publications

Key Publications

  1. McLachlan S, Lucas P, Dube K, Hitman GA, Osman M, Kyrimi E, Neil M, Fenton NE. The fundamental limitations of COVID-19 contact tracing methods and how to resolve them with a Bayesian network approach. ResearchGate 2020 Preprint https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341358115
  2. Al Wattar BH, Dodds J, Placzek A, Beresford L, Spyreli E, Moore A, Roseboom TJ, Bes-Rastrollo M, Hitman GA, Hooper R, Khan KS, Thangaratinam S  for the ESTEEM study group. Effects of Mediterranean-style diet on maternal and fetal outcomes in pregnancies with metabolic risk factors (ESTEEM): a pragmatic multi-centre randomised trial. PLOS Medicine 2019; 16, (7) :e1002857.
  3. Fottrell E, Ahmed N, Nahar B, Shaha SK, Kuddus A, Grijalva-Eternod CS, Nahar T, Fall C, Osmond C, Govoni V, Finer S, Yajnik C, Khan AKA, Costello A, Azad K, Hitman GA. Growth and body composition of children aged 2-4 years after exposure to community mobilisation women's groups in Bangladesh. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2018 Oct;72(10):888-895. doi: 10.1136/jech-2017-210134. Epub 2018 Jun 15. PMID: 29907704
  4. Forouhi NG, Menon RK, Sharp SJ, Mannan N, Timms PM, Martineau AR, Rickard AP, Boucher BJ, Chowdhury TA, Griffiths CJ, Greenwald SE, Griffin SJ, Hitman GA. Effects of vitamin D2 or D3 supplementation on glycaemic control and cardiometabolic risk among people at risk of type 2 diabetes: results of a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Diabetes Obes Metab 2016; 18:392-400
  5. Miettinen ME, Smart MC, Kinnunen L, Mathews C, Harjutsalo V, Surcel HM, Lamberg-Allardt C, Tuomilehto J, Hitman GA. Maternal VDR variants rather than 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration during early pregnancy are associated with type 1 diabetes in the offspring. Diabetologia 2015; 58:2278-2283
  6. Greenhalgh T, Clinch M, Afsar N, Choudhury Y, Sudra R, Campbell-Richards D, Claydon A, Hitman GA, Hanson P, Finer S. Socio-cultural influences on the behaviour of South Asian women with diabetes in pregnancy: qualitative study using a multi-level theoretical approach. BMC Med 2015; 13:120
  7. Finer S, Mathews C, Lowe R, Smart M, Hillman S, Foo L, Sinha A, Williams D, Rakyan VK, Hitman GA. Maternal gestational diabetes is associated with genome-wide DNA methylation variation in placenta and cord blood of exposed offspring. Hum Mol Genet 2015; 24:3021-3029
  8. Postmus I, Trompet S, Deshmukh HA el [Hitman one of several senior authors] Pharmacogenetic meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of LDL cholesterol response to statins. Nat Commun 2014; 5:5068

 All Publications

 

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