Following undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, Andrew Halestrap joined the Bristol University Department of Biochemistry as a research student supervised by Dick Denton in 1970.  After his PhD, he was awarded a Beit Memorial Fellowship and then appointed to a Lecturership in the department in 1976.  He was promoted to Reader and Professor in 1988 and 1996 respectively.  During the nearly 45 years he has been in the Department (now School) of Biochemistry, he has played a massive part in its development both as a teacher and researcher.

Most of his undergraduate teaching has been within the Biochemistry BSc course where he has been responsible for a large slice of the teaching of metabolism and some bioenergetics.  He also oversaw the introduction of the Third Year options courses.  His skill and dedication to teaching has always been much appreciated by the legions of students who have attended his various courses and he was awarded the Faculty Teaching Prize in 2008.  He was Chairman of the Teaching Committee from 1995-2007 with a 3 year break on a Wellcome Trust Research Leave Fellowship.

‌The research of Andrew Halestrap has been broadly in two fields of mammalian energy metabolism of major medical importance and he has become a world leader in both.

Following his discovery of both the plasma membrane and mitochondrial monocarboxylate transporters that play pivotal roles in the metabolism of pyruvate, lactate and ketone bodies, he has led the field in elucidating the molecular identity, structure, role and regulation of these transporters and associated proteins.

He has performed many pioneering studies on the regulation of mitochondrial function in health and disease.  In particular, his ground-breaking work on the mechanism and role of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore that has been instrumental in establishing the central role of mitochondria in cell death. His studies also established that metformin (the most widely prescribed drug used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes) acted by inhibiting complex 1 of the respiratory chain.  

‌His research is highly relevant to the understanding and treatment of a wide range of clinical conditions including cancer, reperfusion injury (in heart and brain), immune disorders and diabetes.  He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2008 and gave the Keilin Memorial Medal Lecture of The Biochemical Society in 2010.  He has published over 220 papers and reviews which have been cited in total more than 27,000 times (H-index 88).