Webinar: Physiology of Obesity: Meet the Experts

Organised by Pete Aldiss, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and Jo Lewis, University of Cambridge, UK.

After a fantastic 11 weeks of talks from early career researchers, our final webinar of the ‘Physiology of Obesity: From Mechanisms to Medicine’ series offered the opportunity to ‘Meet the Experts’.

Two leading physiologists discussed how physiology shaped their research and career, and how the discipline is important to the future of obesity research. This was followed by a live Q&A.

Juleen Zierath, Executive Director of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen, Denmark, leads the Integrative Physiology research groups at both CBMR and Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.

Zierath is a dedicated physiologist whose research investigates the interactions between circadian rhythmicity, diet and exercise to identify targets for the prevention and treatment of metabolic disease.

As chair, and now member of the Nobel Committee at Karolinska Institutet, Zierath has been involved in the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine since 2013.

Marc Reitman, Senior Investigator and Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity Branch Chief at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, USA is interested in the mechanics and translational understanding of diabetes, energy homeostasis and obesity.

Reitman, whose research has focused on the physiology of obesity, has leveraged mouse genetics and pharmacology to understand the regulation of metabolic rate and body temperature with a focus on the bombesin receptor subtype-3 to develop candidate treatments for human obesity.