Understanding

Professor Sadaf Farooqi (Cambridge)

Sadaf Farooqi is a Welcome Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Metabolism and Medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is an internationally leading Clinician Scientist who has made seminal contributions to understanding the genetic and physiological mechanisms that underlie obesity and its complications. The work of Sadaf Farooqi and her colleagues has fundamentally altered the understanding of how body weight is regulated. With colleagues, she discovered and characterised the first genetic disorders that cause severe childhood obesity and established that the principal driver of obesity in these conditions was a failure of the control of appetite. Her work is often cited as an exemplar of how the translation of research into the mechanisms of disease can lead to patient benefit. She has received a number of awards including the ADA Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award 2019 and the Dale Medal 2021 (the highest honour awarded by the UK Society of Endocrinology). In 2021, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of her exceptional contribution to science.

Professor Rachel Batterham (London)

Professor Rachel Batterham is Professor of Obesity, Diabetes and Endocrinology at University College London (UCL). She leads the University College London Hospital (UCLH) Bariatric Centre for Weight Management & Metabolic Surgery and the UCL Centre for Obesity Research within the Department of Medicine. She is the Clinical Director for the Division of Medicine at UCL and the Director for the UCLH/UCL NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Obesity Research Theme. She is the Royal College of Physicians’ Special Advisor on Obesity.

She has received several national and international awards for her obesity including the Royal Society of Medicine’s Steven’s Lecture (2018), the Andre Mayer award from the World Obesity Federation (2016), and the Diabetes UK Rank Fund Nutrition Prize (2015).

Professor Batterham has made significant clinical contributions to defining the management of obese patients through her membership of the NICE Obesity Guideline Development Group. She is Scientific Chair for the International Federation for Surgery for Obesity and Metabolic Diseases (IFSO) European Chapter (since 2015), a Trustee for the Association for the Study of Obesity (since 2016) and Council Member for British Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society (since 2016). She is passionate about reducing the stigma that people with obesity experience and ensuring that the patient voice is heard and has established a charity for people affected by obesity, Obesity Empowerment Network UK

Dr Stuart Flint (Leeds)

Dr Stuart W. Flint is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Leeds, Director of Obesity UK, and President of Scaled Insights. Dr Flint is also an Honorary Academic for Public Health England. He is the Chair of the Obesity Policy Engagement Network (UK), and a contributing member to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Obesity and APPG on a Fit and Healthy Childhood. He contributes evidence to several other APPGs on health and inequalities experiences by marginalised groups. He has a specific interest and expertise in stigma and discrimination, leading work internationally and nationally to highlight the pervasiveness and impact of stigma and discrimination on obesity. He has developed interventions to reduce stigmatising attitudes and discriminatory behaviours working national and local governments, health systems, education, media, charities and the general population. Dr Flint has published widely in high impact journals including the Lancet, Nature Medicine and the British Medical Journal, and is regularly interviewed by media outlets (e.g. BBC, Sky News, and The Times).

Dr Mars Skae

A Malaysian by birth, Mars moved to the United Kingdom to read medicine at Sheffield University and graduated in 1998, followed by obtaining membership to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and completing her training in general paediatrics in Manchester. Post completion of training, she undertook further subspeciality training in paediatric endocrinology and a Clinical Research Fellowship in congenital hyperinsulinism, completing a postgraduate research degree at The University of Manchester.

She was appointed as a Consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital in 2010, and is currently the clinical lead for the Department of Paediatric Endocrinology and lead clinician for paediatric obesity, disorders of sexual differentiation and has also developed interests in metabolic bone diseases with particular focus on skeletal dysplasias.

In addition to her clinical role, she is actively involved in the training of medical students, junior medical staff and maintains a keen interest in medical research. She has previously held the post of guidelines officer for the British Society of Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes (BSPED), is a professor advisor for the NIHR funded obesity empowerment network (OEN) UK and have previously contributed to the development of National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for obesity and quality standards.

Billy White (London)

Consultant Paediatrician, University College London Hospital and Great Ormond Street