Abstract

The recent increase in the proportion of the population with obesity and/or type 2 diabetes is a matter of great concern for global public health. The rising incidence of these disorders is clearly attributable to changes in the environment that promote caloric consumption and decrease energy expenditure. However, we need to understand why some individuals are susceptible to obesogenic influences while others remain resistant. Similarly, it would be helpful to have a better insight into the mechanises whereby some seriously obese people completely avoid the metabolic consequences of over-nutrition while others succumb to the disabling complications of metabolic derangement despite being only modestly obese. In this lecture, Professor O'Rahilly will describe how human genetics has helped to enhance our understanding of our susceptibility or resistance to obesity and its adverse metabolic consequences. The findings have broad-ranging implications for the management of individual patients, for drug development and for public health strategies.

About the speaker

Stephen O’Rahilly is Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Medicine at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He led the establishment of the Institute of Metabolic Science, which he now co-directs. He is Scientific Director of the Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. He qualified in Medicine from University College Dublin and undertook post-graduate training in London, Oxford and Boston before setting up his laboratory in Cambridge in 1991. He has sought to better understand the molecular mechanisms leading to diabetes, obesity and related metabolic and endocrine disorders. He remains active in clinical practice and in the teaching of medical students. He has won many national and international awards including the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the Inbev Baillet Latour Prize, and the Zülch Prize. He was elected to the Royal Society in 2003, a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences USA in 2011 and is an Honorary Member of the German Society for Internal Medicine and the Royal Irish Academy. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 2013.