Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, M.D., FRS

Dr. Stephen O’Rahilly is an endocrinologist whose studies have illuminated fundamental mechanisms underlying disorders such as obesity, insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes and hyperemesis gravidarum (extreme nausea and vomiting in pregnancy) and assisted the translation of those discoveries into improvements in patient care. His work has uncovered several previously unrecognized genetic causes of these disorders, including some that are amenable to specific treatments.

Dr. O’Rahilly is a fellow of the Royal Society, an international member of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., and has received several honorary degrees. He has won many prestigious awards including the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the Debrecen Prize, the Taubman Prize, the Inbev Baillet Latour Prize, the European Hormone Medal, the EASD/Novo Nordisk Foundation Diabetes Prize for Excellence, the Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement, the Manpei Suzuki Prize and the Royal Society’s Croonian Medal (with Sadaf Farooqi). He was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2013.

In 1991, Dr. O’Rahilly obtained a Wellcome Trust senior clinical fellowship and established his laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where he is now professor of clinical biochemistry and medicine and head of the department of clinical biochemistry. He is co-director of the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science (the establishment of which he led), director of the MRC metabolic diseases unit and honorary consultant physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.

Dr. O’Rahilly holds an M.D. from University College Dublin. He completed postgraduate clinical and research training in general medicine, diabetes and endocrinology in London, Oxford and Harvard.