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Dr Robertson gained his PhD in molecular virology from Macquarie University, Australia before undertaking Post-Doctoral training in gene regulation and nuclear architecture at Oxford. He returned to Australia as a Post-Doc in the laboratory of Prof. Emma Whitelaw at University of Sydney where he set up a transgenic mouse facility and discovered repeat-induced silencing as an epigenetic process on mammalian transgenes. Dr Robertson then moved to Westmead Hospital Millennium Institute where he pursued studies on the fibrotic liver disease NASH and the impact of inducible xenobiotic/drug interactions on drug clearance pathways. A component of this work involved creating a transgenic mouse model for studying gene regulation of human CYP3A4, the main pathway for drug metabolism. The model was subsequently commercially leveraged as a screening tool for drug development. At the ANZAC and Garvan Institutes in Sydney (2004-2014), Dr Robertson explored the impact of cancer-associated inflammation in repressing drug clearance leading to excessive toxicity. Dr Robertson also explored the link between chronic inflammation and disrupted energy metabolism as the basis for cancer cachexia. A key discovery from this work was the activation of thermogenesis in white & brown fat, linked to body wasting. These findings were published in Cancer Research and Cell Metabolism where it was ranked amongst the 10th highest papers in the latter journal. He has published ~60 papers with >3,000 citations.