www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-an.... On visiting the USA last week several academic colleagues had got the impression that the UK was becoming increasingly illiberal. I would like to point them to this speech by arif ahmed which illustrates the UKs firm commitment to Academic freedom

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... Working with our great collaborators at Pfizer we have uncovered a common genetic contributor to metabolic ill health/

nature.com/articles/s44161-025-00712-3 Interesting. But studies of GDF15 on cells used GDF15 made in mammalian cells which is always contaminated by TGFB family members (see PMID: 29161287) some of which are active at fmolar concs. Yeast or bacterially derived is fine. Qkine is good source

Fantastic news. Processes designed to measure Research excellence should focus on whether research done at our universities is reproducible, represents a significant advance in understanding, and/or is actually or potentially useful. The rest is just prattle.

The @easdnews.bsky.social Novo Nordisk Foundation Prize #Diabetes

Expanding metabolic roles for the GIPR in oligodendrocytes #weightloss www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

So very sad. Davo was a truly great endocrine scientist.

sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Great to see further evidence emerging supporting the pressing need for trials of preconceptional GDF15 desensitisation with metformin for prevention of severe nausea and vomiting of pregnancy in women with a previous history. Congrats to @drfejzo.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/o... Amazing to see this article appear in the NYT. I hope many of my fellow endocrinologists are reading it @endocrinesociety.bsky.social

OMG. This looks terrifying.

Mice lacking this amino acid lost 30% body weight www.nature.com/articles/d41... Am I missing something? Mice engineered to have a specific and severe defect in amino acid metabolism get sick and lose weight. Might the rush to find new weight loss targets be impairing our critical faculties ?

Had a great time at Lund university attending their Spring Meeting. Amused to see this poster outside the lecture theatre. Those old English universities: it’s hard to tell them apart 😊

📢 Job Vacancy! Institute of Metabolic Science @ims-mrl.bsky.social are looking for a Research Nurse to join their team. Applications open until 30th May! >>> For more info: bit.ly/4iIkrNo @cuhnhs.bsky.social @mrcepid.bsky.social @stephenorahilly.bsky.social @cambridgeuni.bsky.social

Indeed. And so ironic that while the new administration says it is very keen to understand the effects of food on health, their actions are resulting in the closure of one the US’s most effective labs in that area @kevinh-phd.bsky.social

www.thefp.com/p/carole-hoo.... While I applaud Harvard for standing up to the Trump government, this article is mandatory reading for anyone who doesn’t understand how it got to this point.

UK’s supreme court rules that legal definition of woman is based on biological sex. This is a hugely important decision. Unanimous .I hope it will open up rational debate in other countries.

I really enjoyed recording one of these with you several years ago. Wishing you well with whatever your next venture will be.

Almut Gadow v Open University genderblog.net/almut-gadow-... This piece is from Nick Wallis, the journalist whose doigged research exposed the Post Office Scandal. He is now taking a serious interest in an area that is increasingly affecting UK universities.Worth a read

Come and study with us for a Masters!

The absence of data on biological sex is an affront to reality www.thetimes.com/article/7463...

Honoured to be in Baden-Baden to receive the Berthold Medal from the German Endocrine Society and give the abet gold lecture. Really great questions from a wonderfully engaged and responsive audience. Thanks to #JensBruining for his very kind introduction.

This International Women's Day, we celebrate as women advocate for change, equity, & inclusivity paving the way for future generations of women scientists Meet Agnes Lukasik, Patient and Public Involvement & Engagement Manager @ims-mrl.bsky.social #IWD2025 #AccelerateAction @mrcepid.bsky.social

www.city-journal.org/article/new-... I was shocked when a recent Perspective in @NEJM disregarded the most thorough, unbiased, science-based assessment of the risk/benefits of taking a pharamacological approach to minors asking for help in relation to their biological sex/

adiposetissue.org: A knowledge portal integrating clinical and experim... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Thanks to the authors for providing a great online tool for the community

www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Interesting but report of liver autonomous effects of MC3R a bit surprising given the very low expression of MC3R in liver, at least in humans

www.science.org/content/arti... Unless he radically changes his approach, which seems unliely, this could be very bad news for US public health and biomedical science. He is actvely campaiigning againsyt HPV vaccination which is abolishing cervical cancer and mainatining an excellent safety record

see nationally commissioned and extremely rigorous Cass Report ( cass.independent-review.uk/home/publica...)

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.... . States that gender affirming care (incl puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in minors) is "essential, evidence-based, and often lifesaving". In no other field would the @NEJM advocate for therapies with such a weak evidence base.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/h.... Looking chic John! @busediabetes.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... Anyone working in the NHS should be aware of how it is treating its female staff. This is in the Observer, a traditonal newspaper of the centre-left, so not a "culture war" piece. Just a sober statemnt of facts.

Endothelial insulin resistance induced by adrenomedullin mediates obesity-associated diabetes | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Interesting and novel idea. Worth digging deep into in humans to see if it pans out

The US biotech and pharma industry leads the world and generates huge income for the US. The large state investment in underpinning science and training is v likely a big factor in creating this favourable environment.

Just reeling from doing a back of the envelope calculation. The UK (population 68M) taxpayer (via the government) invests ~£2b pa in biomedical research. The US (pop 350M) taxpayer invests ~£40b Pa. The average US taxpayer invests four times as much as UK. And the US is a “low tax” country. Wow.

Huge congratulations to former BSN President Giles Yeo, his team and collaborators for this incredible work creating a spacial map of the human hypothalamus - the HypoMap is out!

www.nature.com/articles/s41... Great to see independent confirmation of our recent work co-led Sam Lockkhart and Milan Muso PMID: 39322746 reporting that LXR alpha protects against cholesterol toxity in the liver

Heartbreaking Am so grateful to work in the NHS where care is free at the point of need Nye Bevan was right “Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community”

rdcu.be/d717N. Bit weird. C5Orf24 is ubiquitously expressed, has a nuclear localisation signal and no signal peptide./

Discussing trans on the radio genderblog.net/discussing-t.... Nick Wallis is the tenacious journalist who revealed the Post Office scandal. He has started to write a blog about sex and gender. He will be worth reading. He describes this topic as one of the most important of our age.

Honoured to be the inaugural deliverer of a lecture honouring these two great Cambridge neuroscientists

We’ve known for decades that leptin provides a fat cell derived critical signal of nutritional sufficiency to enter puberty. Now we know that muscle mass signals to the central control pubertal onset via myostatin. To my mind this is the most convincing hormonal myokine to date.

Muscle-derived myostatin is a major endocrine driver of follicle-stimulating hormone synthesis | Science science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…. Major advance in endocrinology. So fascinating that new important hormonal actions of TGFBeta family members are still being discovered.

www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitne... The wonderful Keith Frayn. A voice of scientific rigour and sanity amid a world of "influencers" peddling nonsense

For everyone in the Cambridge area interested in metabolomics or lipidomics: CaMeL talks, January 23rd. Please register on www.mrl.ims.cam.ac.uk/events/camel...

Silence on cousin marriage is the unspeakable face of liberalism www.thetimes.com/article/723d.... As usual, Matthew Sayed is well worth a read.

A great example of how markets can be transiently insane. A key question relating to combining amylin with GLP1 analogues is whether the long term tolerability will be enhanced wrt Semaglutide or tirzepatide. It’s far too early to say

www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcar... A courageous doctor who has been subject to vilification and threats because she gathered the best possible evidence, summarised it accurately, and made practical recommendations in a contentious area. Because that was what we, as a society, asked her to do.

www.bbc.com/news/article.... Good to see the Labour government making a difficult decision that prioritises the health and safety of children and emphasises that health policy must be based on scientific evidence and not ideology.