Richard Hugh Dunstan

Hugh Dunstan has been a scientific researcher for 40 years. He obtained his PhD from the University of Oxford, then held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford and the University of Melbourne before taking up a lectureship at the University of Newcastle (Australia). He retired in 2020 as a Professor of metabolic biochemistry, with a research focus on the nature of exercise-induced fatigue and the metabolic processes that underpin it.

In 2014, Hugh and his colleagues, Professor Tim Roberts and Dr Margaret MacDonald, made a breakthrough in understanding the significance of the losses of amino acids in sweat and urine, relative to their corresponding blood levels. This breakthrough provided new insights into the supply and demand for key nutrients in humans and has opened up a completely new understanding of protein turnover and amino acid metabolism.

Over the next six years, Hugh and his team continued to investigate amino acid losses in sweat and urine from humans and published their findings in international peer-reviewed journals. Their research has identified six amino acids that are lost in large quantities in sweat and urine. These same six amino acids have numerous metabolic roles in various body functions: Energy Systems, Growth and Recovery, Structural Integrity and Metabolism. Because of these features, this group of amino acids has been referred to as high-demand amino acids (HDAA).

In their retirement, Hugh and his team have used this scientific revelation as a basis to form a company, InnovAAte Pty Ltd, to develop novel HDAA supplementation products: ElectrAAte® and OptimAAte®. The goals of these products are simply to replenish the HDAA and electrolytes for maintaining optimal metabolism during exercise and improving recovery.