Stephen O'Rahilly - Biography#

Stephen O’Rahilly graduated in Medicine from University College Dublin in 1981. From 1982 to 1991 he undertook postgraduate clinical and research training in general medicine, diabetes and endocrinology in London, Oxford and Harvard. In 1991 he obtained a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellowship and established his laboratory at the University of Cambridge. In 1996 he was appointed to a newly created Chair of Metabolic Medicine and in 2002 to the Chair of Clinical Biochemistry and Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He is the Co-Director of the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and Director of the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit. His research has been concerned with the elucidation of the basic causes of obesity, insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes at a molecular level and the translation of those discoveries into improved diagnosis and therapy for patients. His work has uncovered many previously unrecognised genetic causes of these diseases including some that are amenable to specific treatment. He has received many distinguished national and international awards and five honorary doctorates. In 2013 he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for services to medical research. He has a continuing commitment to clinical practice. He has made important contributions to the development of research infrastructure on the biomedical campus in Cambridge. He his a highly successful mentor of many young scientists and clinician-scientists. He has been a generous academic citizen nationally and internationally through his service to advisory boards in academia, government agencies, charities and industry and through his editorial work for several leading journals.