Dr Nick Hudson

Nick's research focuses on improving the efficiency and environmental sustainability of animal production systems. He uses modern omics technologies and quantitative analysis to support genetic improvement, inform management decisions, and enhance on-farm interventions that improve productivity while reducing environmental impact.

In parallel, he studies the physiology, metabolism and conservation of native Australian fauna, with particular interest in frogs and butterflies. His work applies comparative and systems-based approaches to understand how animals function across diverse ecological contexts.

Trained as a metabolic biochemist, Nick's expertise spans the interpretation of large and complex biological datasets, molecular technologies, mitochondrial physiology, and metabolic flux. His research integrates molecular data with whole-animal function to better understand how biological systems convert energy and information into phenotypic outcomes.

Before joining the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability (AGFS) as a Teaching and Research academic, Nick worked within a multidisciplinary Systems Biology group at CSIRO. There he helped develop and apply 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 highlight of this work was the co-development of a universal method for inferring causal regulatory molecules from genome-wide gene expression data (Hudson et al., 2009, PLoS Computational Biology). This approach has since been applied across diverse systems, including human kidney cancer and commercially important traits in livestock species.

Nick's broader research contributions reflect an interest in complex biological function across scales. His publications have addressed mitochondrial systems biology, metabolic adaptation and hibernation physiology, population genetics methodology, and the physiological basis of economically important traits such as beef marbling and feed conversion efficiency. He has also contributed to interdisciplinary work exploring information processing in biological and cognitive systems and the interpretation of educational data.

Nick completed his undergraduate degree in Animal Biology at the University of St Andrews and was awarded his PhD through the Zoology Department at The University of Queensland after travelling from England on a Britain–Australia Society Northcote Scholarship.

He teaches biochemistry and molecular biology to undergraduate and postgraduate students using a comparative approach that draws on both wildlife and production species. Core biochemical principles are illustrated through applied examples from agriculture, biomedicine, sports science and environmental systems, helping students understand how molecular processes scale to whole-organism function and real-world outcomes.