Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, M.D., an expert in metabolic and endocrine diseases, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, April 2.
His lecture, entitled “Human Obesity and Insulin Resistance: Lessons from the Extremes,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall. It is the Irwin Eskind Lecture in Biomedical Science.
O’Rahilly is professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Medicine at the University of Cambridge, England, where he helped establish and now co-directs the Institute of Metabolic Science.
His team has focused on extreme syndromes of obesity and insulin resistance, including lipodystrophy, to gain insights into the physiology and pathophysiology of energy balance and metabolism. O’Rahilly and colleagues have identified genetic variants that cause extreme syndromes. They are using animal and cellular models to understand the biological mechanisms, with the goal of improving diagnosis, therapy and prevention.
O’Rahilly has received 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 and as a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2011, and he was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 2013.
O’Rahilly’s lecture is sponsored by the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center. For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.