British consultant physician
Ismaa Sadaf Farooqi
FMedSci
FRS is a
Wellcome Trust Senior
Research fellow
[2] in
Clinical Science , professor of
Metabolism and Medicine at the
University of Cambridge and a
consultant physician at
Addenbrooke's Hospital in
Cambridge , UK.
[1]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Education
Farooqi was educated at the
University of Birmingham where she studied medicine, and was awarded a
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1993.
[3] After working as a
pre-registration house officer and
senior house officer ,
[3] she moved into research and was awarded a PhD in 2001 from the
University of Cambridge for research on the
genetics of severe
childhood obesity .
[6]
[7]
Research
Farooqi's research investigates the
genetics of obesity .
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11] Using
candidate genes found in patients with severe
obesity , her research group have identified patients with
mutations in
genes encoding
leptin , the
leptin receptor and
biological targets of leptin action, such as the
Melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R). Her group have also demonstrated that the central
leptin -
melanocortin axis plays a critical role in the regulation of
human food intake .
[12]
[13] Research in her laboratory has shown that people who carry variants of the
MC4R gene have an increased preference for high fat food (such as certain recipes of
chicken korma ), but a decreased preference for sugary foods like
Eton mess .
[6]
[14]
[15]
Her research has also proven that mutations in the
KSR2 gene are associated with
insulin resistance
[16] and that genetic variation in the
fat mass and obesity-associated protein (FTO) is associated with
diminished hunger .
[17] Her research has been funded by the
Wellcome Trust ,
[2]
[18]
Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust and the
Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development (FP7) from the
European Union .
[3]
Awards and honours
Farooqi was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.
[19]
Farooqi was elected a
Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2013.
[20] Her citation on election reads:
Sadaf Farooqi has fundamentally altered our understanding of human obesity. Her work was key to the discovery of the first mutations that cause human obesity, defining and characterising a range of previously undescribed genetic obesity syndromes, and establishing that the principal driver of obesity in these
monogenic syndromes was a failure of the central control of
appetite and
satiety . She has been greatly committed to the translation of her research into patient benefit and has helped to change clinical attitudes and
diagnostic practice world-wide. Obesity is one of the major
public health threats facing the international community and Farooqi's research has been critical in bringing real biological insights where these were previously lacking.
[20]
Farooqi was interviewed by
Jim Al-Khalili on
The Life Scientific , first broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 in 2017.
[6]
Farooqi was awarded the
American Diabetes Association's Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award in 2019.
[21]
References
^
a
b
Sadaf Farooqi publications indexed by
Google Scholar
^
a
b Anon (2016).
"Senior Research Fellowships in Clinical Science: people we've funded" . wellcome.ac.uk . London:
Wellcome Trust . Archived from
the original on 25 January 2017.
^
a
b
c
d Sadaf Farooqi's
ORCID
0000-0001-7609-3504
^
Sadaf Farooqi's publications indexed by the
Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
^ Anon (2016).
"Professor Sadaf Farooqi: Cambridge Neuroscience" . Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Archived from
the original on 18 June 2016.
^
a
b
c
Al-Khalili, Jim (2017).
"Sadaf Farooqi on what makes us fat" . London: BBC. Is it true that some people put on weight more easily than others? And if so why? It's a question that's close to many of our hearts. And it's a question that medical researcher, Professor Sadaf Farooqi is trying to answer. In 1997, Sadaf noticed that two children she was studying lacked the hormone leptin. From there, she went on to discover the first single gene defect that causes obesity. For most us, how much we eat is within our control. But for children with this rare inherited condition and, it turned out, several other rare genetic disorders, the evidence is clear. A voracious appetite is not a lifestyle choice: it's a biological response to brains signalling starvation. Sadaf tells Jim how she discovered ten rare genetic disorders that cause severe childhood obesity and what this means for the rest of us.
^ Farooqi, Ismaa Sadaf (2001).
Genetics of severe childhood obesity (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
OCLC
894596925 .
^ Gerken, T.; Girard, C. A.; Tung, Y. -C. L.; Webby, C. J.; Saudek, V.; Hewitson, K. S.; Yeo, G. S. H.; McDonough, M. A.; Cunliffe, S.; McNeill, L. A.; Galvanovskis, J.;
Rorsman, P. ; Robins, P.; Prieur, X.; Coll, A. P.; Ma, M.; Jovanovic, Z.; Farooqi, I. S.; Sedgwick, B.; Barroso, I.;
Lindahl, T. ;
Ponting, C. P. ;
Ashcroft, F. M. ;
O'Rahilly, S. ;
Schofield, C. J. (2007).
"The Obesity-Associated FTO Gene Encodes a 2-Oxoglutarate-Dependent Nucleic Acid Demethylase" .
Science . 318 (5855): 1469–1472.
Bibcode :
2007Sci...318.1469G .
doi :
10.1126/science.1151710 .
PMC
2668859 .
PMID
17991826 .
^ OʼRahilly, Stephen; Montague, Carl T.; Farooqi, I. Sadaf; Whitehead, Jonathan P.; Soos, Maria A.; Rau, Harald; Wareham, Nicholas J.; Sewter, Ciaran P.; Digby, Janet E.; Mohammed, Shehla N.; Hurst, Jane A.; Cheetham, Christopher H.; Earley, Alison R.; Barnett, Anthony H.; Prins, Johannes B. (1997).
"Congenital leptin deficiency is associated with severe early-onset obesity in humans" .
Nature . 387 (6636): 903–908.
Bibcode :
1997Natur.387..903M .
doi :
10.1038/43185 .
PMID
9202122 .
S2CID
205032762 .
^ Speliotes, Elizabeth K; Willer, Cristen J; Berndt, Sonja I; Monda, Keri L; Thorleifsson, Gudmar; Jackson, Anne U; Allen, Hana Lango; Lindgren, Cecilia M; Luan, Jian'an; Mägi (2010).
"Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index" .
Nature Genetics . 42 (11): 937–948.
doi :
10.1038/ng.686 .
PMC
3014648 .
PMID
20935630 .
^ Farooqi, I. Sadaf; Jebb, Susan A.; Langmack, Gill; Lawrence, Elizabeth; Cheetham, Christopher H.; Prentice, Andrew M.; Hughes, Ieuan A.; McCamish, Mark A.; O'Rahilly, Stephen (1999).
"Effects of Recombinant Leptin Therapy in a Child with Congenital Leptin Deficiency" .
New England Journal of Medicine . 341 (12): 879–884.
doi :
10.1056/NEJM199909163411204 .
PMID
10486419 .
^ Farooqi, I. Sadaf; O'Rahilly, Stephen (2006).
"Genetics of Obesity in Humans" .
Endocrine Reviews . 27 (7): 710–718.
doi :
10.1210/er.2006-0040 .
PMID
17122358 .
^ Gallager, James (2013).
"Slow metabolism 'obesity excuse' true" . London: BBC. Archived from
the original on 6 February 2016.
^ Brierley, Craig (2016).
"Chicken korma, Eton mess and a genetic variant provide clues to our food choices" . Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Archived from
the original on 8 November 2016.
^ van der Klaauw, Agatha A.; Keogh, Julia M.; Henning, Elana; Stephenson, Cheryl; Kelway, Sarah; Trowse, Victoria M.; Subramanian, Naresh; O'Rahilly, Stephen; Fletcher, Paul C.; Farooqi, I. Sadaf (2016).
"Divergent effects of central melanocortin signalling on fat and sucrose preference in humans" .
Nature Communications . 7 : 13055.
Bibcode :
2016NatCo...713055V .
doi :
10.1038/ncomms13055 .
PMC
5059464 .
PMID
27701398 .
^ Pearce, Laura R.; Atanassova, Neli; Banton, Matthew C.; Bottomley, Bill; van der Klaauw, Agatha A.; Revelli, Jean-Pierre; Hendricks, Audrey; Keogh, Julia M.; Henning, Elana; Doree, Deon; Jeter-Jones, Sabrina; Garg, Sumedha; Bochukova, Elena G.; Bounds, Rebecca; Ashford, Sofie; Gayton, Emma; Hindmarsh, Peter C.; Shield, Julian P.H.; Crowne, Elizabeth; Barford, David; Wareham, Nick J.; O'Rahilly, Stephen; Murphy, Michael P.; Powell, David R.; Barroso, Ines; Farooqi, I. Sadaf (2013).
"KSR2 Mutations Are Associated with Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and Impaired Cellular Fuel Oxidation" .
Cell . 155 (4): 765–777.
doi :
10.1016/j.cell.2013.09.058 .
PMC
3898740 .
PMID
24209692 .
^ Wardle, Jane; Carnell, Susan; Haworth, Claire M. A.; Farooqi, I. Sadaf; O'Rahilly, Stephen; Plomin, Robert (2008).
"Obesity Associated Genetic Variation in FTO is Associated with Diminished Satiety" .
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism . 93 (9): 3640–3643.
doi :
10.1210/jc.2008-0472 .
PMID
18583465 .
S2CID
13929741 .
^
Sadaf Farooqi discusses how our genes affect our weight on
YouTube
Wellcome Collection
^
"Royal Society elects outstanding new Fellows and Foreign Members" . The Royal Society . 6 May 2021. Retrieved 21 May 2021 .
^
a
b Anon (2013).
"Professor Sadaf Farooqi FMedSci" . acmedsci.ac.uk . London:
Academy of Medical Sciences . Archived from
the original on 1 August 2016.
^
"2019 Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award - Sadaf Farooqi, MB, ChB (Hons), PhD" . professional.diabetes.org . Retrieved 14 November 2019 .
International National Academics Other