My research interests are in comparative developmental physiology with particular emphasis on the endocrine and other mechanisms controlling intrauterine development and its long-term, postnatal consequences. My long term goal is to identify how conditions during early life programme development and increase susceptibility to adult-onset degenerative diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The research takes an integrated approach from the systems to the molecular levels and has both basic and strategic aims with direct applications to medicine, veterinary medicine and the food and livestock industries. My research has three main themes.