I had the honour of visiting the Nobel Prize Winner Prof Gregg Semenza in his lab at Johns Hopkins in 2011 discuss with him my research on oxygen requirements and subsequent cellular behaviour of the mitral valve cells

I am extremely delighted that the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 2019 was rewarded to three distinguished scientists for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.

I had the honour of visiting one of Nobel Prize Winners, Prof Gregg Semenza in his lab at Johns Hopkins in 2011. I was grateful for his warm welcome and generous help with thoughts and resources. I enjoyed a long scientific conversation with him.

I have a special interest in this exciting field. My PhD studied the oxygen homeostasis of Mitral Valve cells. We were first to discover the oxygen requirements and subsequent cellular behaviour of the mitral valve cells with Dr Adrian Chester, Prof Sir Magdi Yacoub and the fantastic team at Harefield, Imperial College London