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The Institute of Metabolic Science-Metabolic Research Laboratories (IMS-MRL) and its embedded Medical Research Council (MRC) Metabolic Diseases Unit investigate the mechanisms through which metabolic health is maintained and how this is disturbed in disease. We seek to use that knowledge to aid better treatment and prevention of obesity, Type 2 diabetes and related endocrine and metabolic diseases.
IMS-MRL research groups encompass skills in genetics, cell biology, cell signalling, neuroendocrinology, bioenergetics, human and animal physiology, experimental medicine and clinical trials.
Latest news
Professor Sadaf Farooqi honoured with an Endocrine Society 2026 Laureate Award
10 September 2025
The Endocrine Society has announced 12 leading endocrinologists as winners of its prestigious 2026 Laureate Awards, the top honours in the field, including Professor Sadaf Farooqi, Professor of Metabolism and Medicine at the IMS-MRL, who has been awarded with the Gerald D. Aurbach Award for Outstanding Translational...
Human glucagon receptor deficiency causes early-onset liver steatosis
3 September 2025
In a paper published in Diabetes , the Farooqi team have identified homozygous loss-of-function mutations in the gene encoding the glucagon receptor (GCGR), in a family in whom three individuals developed early-onset fatty liver disease (and in one case cirrhosis of the liver). While this condition is commonly associated...
13 August 2025
The next-generation of obesity medicines harness the activity of glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide and glucagon-like peptide 1 receptors (GIPR, GLP-1R), but exactly how they work remains unclear. A recent study published in Cell Metabolism and led by Dr Robert Hansford (PhD student with the Blouet group) and...
