Stephen J. Simpson
Biologist who began with how locusts choose their food and is known for the Geometric Framework for nutrition, which shows that the balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat shapes health and lifespan; inaugural academic director of the Charles Perkins Centre
Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney · Executive director, Obesity Australia (since 2018) · Inaugural academic director, Charles Perkins Centre (2014–2025) · ARC Federation Fellow, University of Sydney (from 2005) · about 22 years at the University of Oxford · PhD, King's College London (1982) · BSc, University of Queensland (1978)
Is it how much we eat, or what we eat, that sets how long we live? In the Atlas study SOL2014, Simpson's group, with first author Samantha Solon-Biet, fed mice 25 diets that differed in protein, carbohydrate, fat and energy content and let them eat freely for life. Total calories did not decide lifespan or metabolic health. The ratio of protein to carbohydrate did: mice on low-protein, high-carbohydrate diets lived longest, and they also had lower mTOR activation in the liver. The study links diet composition to mTOR, the nutrient sensor that rapamycin blocks. It was done in mice.
Simpson studied at the University of Queensland (BSc, 1978) and earned a PhD at King's College London in 1982 on how locust nymphs control their food intake. He then spent about 22 years at the University of Oxford, in Experimental Psychology, Zoology and the University Museum of Natural History. His group, with colleagues including David Raubenheimer, uses the Geometric Framework (nutritional geometry), a way of mapping how animals balance several nutrients at once.
He returned to Australia in 2005 as an ARC Federation Fellow at the University of Sydney and served as the inaugural academic director of the Charles Perkins Centre from 2014 to 2025. Since 2018 he has also been executive director of Obesity Australia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (2013) and of the Australian Academy of Science (2007), and a Companion of the Order of Australia (2016).
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | A | The ratio of macronutrients, not caloric intake, dictates cardiometabolic health, aging, and longevity in ad libitum-fed mice SOL2014 Senior author: led the 25-diet mouse study showing that the protein-to-carbohydrate ratio, not calorie intake, shaped lifespan and metabolic health, with lower liver mTOR activation on low-protein diets. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 2
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Stephen J. Simpson.
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- David A. Sinclair Geneticist of aging at Harvard Medical School, known for work on sirtuins, NAD+ and the idea that aging stems from a loss of epigenetic information, who appears in this Atlas as a co-author on two mouse lifespan studies
- Samantha M. Solon-Biet Nutrition and ageing researcher at the Charles Perkins Centre who uses the Geometric Framework to study how protein, carbohydrate and fat intake affect lifespan, metabolism and reproduction in mice
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