Melanie Davies

University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

Melanie Davies is Professor of Diabetes Medicine at the University of Leicester, UK, and an Honorary Consultant Diabetologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. She is based in the Diabetes Research Centre, University of Leicester, and is also the Co-Director of the Leicester Diabetes Centre, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

Professor Davies is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator Emeritus and Director of the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre. Her research interests include the causes, screening, prevention, self-management and treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. She is the Principal Investigator on a number of large global studies in the field of diabetes, obesity, physical activity, sedentary behaviour and cardiovascular disease, and Co-Chair for the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and American Diabetes Association Consensus Report on T2DM Management.

Professor Davies has published over 700 original articles and has received over £60M of grant funding. She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2016 New Year’s Honour’s List for services to diabetes research.

Carel le Roux

University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Carel le Roux graduated from medical school in Pretoria, South Africa, and completed his specialist training in metabolic medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital, UK. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College London where he later took up a faculty position before moving to University College Dublin, Ireland, to take up the Chair in Experimental Pathology. Professor le Roux is now a Director of the Metabolic Medicine Group and also holds the position of Professor of Metabolic Medicine at Ulster University, Ireland. He currently coordinates an Innovative Medicine Initiative project on obesity.

Professor le Roux is the recipient of a President of Ireland Young Researcher Award, Irish Research Council Laurate Award, and a Clinician Scientist Award from the UK National Institute for Health Research, and was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship for his work on how the gut talks to the brain.

John Wilding

University of Liverpool , Liverpool, UK

John Wilding leads clinical research into obesity, diabetes and endocrinology at the University of Liverpool, UK.

Professor Wilding graduated from Southampton University in 1985, where he continued his clinical training until moving to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital, London, where he undertook specialist training in diabetes and endocrinology, and three years of laboratory-based research into the neurobiology of obesity and diabetes. He leads specialist services for severe obesity at Aintree University Hospital – designated a Centre for Obesity Management by the UK and European Associations for the Study of Obesity. His research team focuses on developing new treatments and strategies to reduce the burden of diabetes and
obesity-related disease.

He has published over three hundred papers, chapters and review articles related to his research interests, which include clinical trials in diabetes and obesity, adipocyte biology, and studies of metabolism.

Professor Wilding chairs the National Clinical Research Network Metabolic and Endocrine Speciality Group and is a past Chair of the UK Association for the Study of Obesity. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians Advisory Group on Nutrition, Weight and Health, and is President of the World Obesity Federation.