Professor Peter Clayton

Biography

Prof Peter T Clayton undertook preclinical medical training at King’s College, Cambridge. In a third year specialising in pharmacology, he was taught by Leslie Iversen who undertook ground-breaking research into catecholamine uptake systems and discovered the role of g-amino butyric acid (GABA) as a neurotransmitter.

Clinical training and a first house officer post were at University College Hospital London. Further training in paediatrics was at various London teaching hospitals with a final house officer job at Great Ormond Street working for Otto Wolff, James Leonard and Isabel Smith. One of Peter’s tasks during that 6-month period was to do the lumbar punctures for the monitoring of treatment of dihydropteridine reductase deficiency with L-DOPA and 5-hydroxy-tryptophan. At that time samples had to be sent to Switzerland for analysis of neurotransmitter amine metabolites but Isabel, Otto and James recognised the need for in-house measurements and this led to the appointment of Keith Hyland to set up the assays.

Peter’s MD research project involved measurement of bile acids in body fluids, and he acquired skills in chromatography and mass spectrometry which proved useful for many later projects. He learnt interpretation of mass spectra from two of the world’s best mass spectrometrists– the MRC’s Alex Lawson and the Karolinska’s Jan Sjövall.

Peter was appointed as a Consultant in Metabolic Medicine at Great Ormond Street in 1996 and as Professor of Metabolic Disease and Hepatology in 1998. He “discovered” aromatic amino acid decarboxylase deficiency in 1992, tyrosine hydroxylase deficiency in 1996, and pyridox(am)ine phosphate oxidase deficiency (pyridoxal phosphate-responsive epilepsy) in 2005 - all possible because of the work of Keith Hyland and later Simon Heales and Simon Pope who perfected techniques for measuring amine metabolites and pterins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

Further work on vitamin B6 -responsive disorders with Philippa Mills led to the identification of pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy due to ALDH7A1 (antiquitin) deficiency in 2006 and pyridoxal phosphate binding protein deficiency (then called PROSC deficiency) in 2016.

Other discoveries have been in the fields of bile acid synthesis, cholesterol synthesis, phytosterolaemia (hereditary and parenteral nutrition-associated), amino acid metabolism and manganese transport.

Peter was Chairman of the Society for the Study of Inborn Errors of Metabolism (SSIEM) from 2010 to 2016.

Awards include Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, Fellowship of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Fellowship of the Society of Biology, the Horst Bickel Prize (2003), Komrower lectureship (2018) and prizes for the best research communication at the annual meeting of the SSIEM.

Peter retired from clinical practice in 2010 but continues to work part time contributing to laboratory testing for sterol, bile acid and vitamin B6 disorders and to some research projects (particularly directed at trying to improve treatment of B6 disorders).