Nicholas Hudson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability within the Faculty of Science at the University of Queensland. He holds an undergraduate degree in Animal Biology from the University of St Andrews and was awarded his PhD in Zoology from the University of Queensland, funded by the Britain–Australia Society Northcote Scholarship. Before joining UQ as a teaching and research academic, Hudson worked in a multidisciplinary Systems Biology group at CSIRO Livestock Industries. There, he developed and applied bioinformatic approaches that integrate metabolite, protein, RNA, and DNA data to model and predict phenotypes of commercial importance in cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry. A key contribution from this work is the co-development of a universal method for inferring causal regulatory molecules from genome-wide gene expression data, detailed in Hudson et al. (2009) in PLoS Computational Biology. This method has been applied to diverse systems, including human kidney cancer and livestock traits.

Hudson's research focuses on improving the efficiency and environmental sustainability of animal production systems through modern omics technologies and quantitative analysis, supporting genetic improvement, management decisions, and on-farm interventions that boost productivity while minimizing environmental impact. He emphasizes feed conversion efficiency due to its commercial and ecological significance. Additionally, he investigates the physiology, metabolism, and conservation of native Australian fauna, with interests in frogs and butterflies, using comparative and systems-based methods to explore function in extreme environments like the arid zone. Trained as a metabolic biochemist, his expertise includes interpreting complex biological datasets, molecular technologies, mitochondrial physiology, and metabolic flux, linking molecular insights to phenotypic outcomes. Notable publications include 'Regulatory impact factors: unraveling the transcriptional regulation of complex traits from expression data' (Bioinformatics, 2010), 'Dramatic genome-wide reprogramming of mRNA in hypometabolic muscle' (Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part B, 2024), and 'Quantitative differences in rumen epithelium proteins and detection of lysine acetylation in lambs fed a low or high metabolizable energy diet' (Journal of Animal Science, 2025). With over 140 publications and more than 2,600 citations, his work spans mitochondrial systems biology, metabolic adaptation, hibernation physiology, population genetics, beef marbling, and feed efficiency. Hudson teaches biochemistry and molecular biology using comparative examples from agriculture, biomedicine, sports science, and ecology. He is an active science communicator featured in print, radio, and television, and maintains extensive collaborations across academia, government, and industry.

Professional Email: n.hudson@uq.edu.au