Endocrine Abstracts

For over 30 years my laboratory has studied how hormones regulate metabolism and how this regulation is disrupted in metabolic disease. Some of these actions are mediated by the central nervous system and affect appetite, food intake and other behaviours. In this talk I will present data on three hormones: insulin, leptin and GDF15. I will briefly discuss recent advances in the understanding of human insulin resistance, the role of leptin melanocortin signalling in obesity and related human phenotypes, and the actions of GDF15 as an allostatic hormone alerting the organism to a range of threats via its brainstem-restricted receptors. As someone who was born, grew up and undertook his undergraduate medical education in Ireland and moved to the UK for post graduate training, I will make some references to the close and long-standing relationships between the two islands in the field of endocrinology.