Director of the Medical Research Council Environmental Epidemiology Unit and Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Southampton. He trained as a physician at Guy's Hospital, London, and thereafter at the Queen Elizabeth Centre in Birmingham. After spending 3 years in Uganda at Makerere University, he returned to Britain to join the new medical school at Southampton. Over the past 15 years his research has focussed on how a baby's nutrition and growth in the womb determine its health in adult life. Studies by his MRC Unit have shown that people who had low birthweight, or were thin or stunted at birth are at increased risk of coronary heart disease, and the disorders related to it - hypertension, diabetes and stroke. This has led to the fetal origins hypothesis, which proposes that these diseases originate through undernutrition in the womb. The hypothesis is strongly supported by studies in animals. The aim of continuing research in this field is the primary prevention of disease through protection of the nutrition and health of young women, combined with the early identification and treatment of individuals developing disease.

Important Publication :
DJP Barker. Mothers, babies, and health in later life. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1998.