Downloadable artificial pancreas app We reported the launch of the world’s first licensed, downloadable artificial pancreas app for people with type 1 diabetes back in March 2020 – an important milestone towards full artificial pancreas availability for everyone with the condition. The decade of research resulting in this breakthrough was led by Roman Hovorka at […]

In this article for The Conversation, Professor Nita Forouhi, Dr Ju-Sheng Zheng and Professor Nick Wareham discuss research showing how indicators of dietary intake, metabolism or nutritional status that are present in our blood can help inform advice on healthy eating. Eating about five servings of fruit and vegetables a day is widely promoted as […]

Research from the Gribble-Reimann group and published this week in Cell Reports has demonstrated the ability to label and maintain fully functional human L-cells in organoid culture. This opens opportunities to explore L-cell function and develop drugs targeting the human enteroendocrine system. Enteroendocrine cells (EECs) produce a range of gut hormones that have key roles […]

A perspective article by Steve O’Rahilly and Sam Lockhart, published this week in MED (a new Cell Press journal) presents hypotheses about the deleterious impact of obesity on the course of COVID-19. There is a growing body of evidence indicating that obesity is strongly and independently associated with adverse outcomes of COVID-19 including death. They […]

At least 3.9 million early deaths are being averted worldwide every year by people being physically active, according to a new study published in The Lancet Global Health today by researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh. The team behind the study argue that too often we focus on the negative health consequences of […]

Congratulations to Fiona Gribble and Frank Reimann who have received a prestigious Wellcome Joint Investigator Award. The five year grant ‘Targeting the gut in metabolic disease,’ will allow the group to investigate the cellular mechanisms of gut hormone secretion in human organoid models, and explore how the gut endocrine axis in humans is affected by […]

The Farooqi team has identified 9 new TrkB mutations and the first BDNF point mutation in patients suffering from severe obesity and a spectrum of neurobehavioral abnormalities, including learning difficulties, hyperactivity and aggression. BDNF (neurotrophin Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) and TrkB (Tropomyosin receptor kinase B) are involved in regulating normal functioning of the brain. In collaboration […]

In a paper published this month in Nature Metabolism, researchers have identified the bone morphogenetic protein 8B (BMP8B), as a new driver of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), promoting inflammation, and disease progression. Obesity is commonly associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) that can progress to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), as a consequence of lipotoxicity that drives […]

Using whole exome and targeted sequencing in 2,737 severely obese cases and 6,704 controls, Prof Farooqi’s team in collaboration with Prof Barroso and her team, identified three genes (PHIP, DGKI, and ZMYM4) enriched with deleterious variants in obese cases. PHIP was of particular interest as changes in this gene have been found in children with […]

In a paper published this month in Hepatology, researchers demonstrate a coherent remodelling of metabolic pathways in hepatocytes during liver regeneration and in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The liver is one of the most active metabolic organs of the human body, characterised by a high degree of plasticity that allows regeneration and healing following acute and […]