Sadaf Farooqi

Sadaf Farooqi qualified with Honours in Medicine from the University of Birmingham, UK being awarded the gold medal.

After hospital posts in Birmingham and Oxford she moved to Cambridge to undertake a PhD. With colleagues, she identified the first single gene defect to cause human obesity in patients with a mutation in the leptin gene (Nature 1997) and described their dramatic response to leptin therapy, establishing leptin’s role in the regulation of eating behavior (NEJM 1999; SCIENCE 2007). As a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow at the Institute of Metabolic Science in Cambridge, Professor Farooqi co-ordinates an internationally recognised programme of research into the genetic, molecular and physiological basis of obesity and thinness. She has been the recipient of a number of awards in recognition of her work including the RD Lawrence Award (Diabetes UK 2007), Andre Mayer Award (International Association for the Study of Obesity 2006), the Society for Endocrinology Medal 2012, The European Society for Endocrinology Prize 2012, Royal College of Physicians Graham Bull Prize in Clinical Science 2012 and the Rank Nutrition Lecture (Diabetes UK) 2014.