Dr Alexander Lyon studied medicine at Oxford University where he was awarded a first-class degree in physiological sciences in 1995, achieving second place in the final honours school. After qualifying from the John Radcliffe Medical School in 1998, he trained as a junior doctor in cardiology in Oxford, London (Royal Brompton Hospital) and Sydney, Australia.

He joined the cardiac medicine research group of Professor Sian Harding and Professor Philip Poole-Wilson, where he studied the influence of cardiac gene therapy upon ventricular arrhythmia generation. He was awarded an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2005 and completed his PhD in 2008, where he spent his first postdoctoral year studying the spatiotemporal patterns of mitochondrial function in the lab of Fadi Akar and Roger Hajjar at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York. 

He was appointed a Walport Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology at Imperial College in October 2008, and he completed his cardiology training at St Mary’s Hospital and Royal Brompton Hospital.