Founding Group

Professor Giles Yeo got his PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Cambridge in 1998. After that, he joined the lab of Prof Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, working on the genetics of severe human obesity. Giles Yeo is now a Professor of Molecular Neuroendocrinology and programme leader at the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit in Cambridge. His research currently focuses on the influence of genes on feeding behaviour and body weight.

Roger Cone joined the University of Michigan as 2016 as the Director of the Life Sciences Institute, and was appointed Vice Provost in 2017. Prior to Michigan, Cone was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt University from 2008-2016, and a faculty member of the Vollum Institute, Oregon Health Sciences University from 1990 - 2008.

Cone is credited with the discovery of multiple fundamental biological roles for the melanocortin system in energy homeostasis, the genetics of pigmentation, and exocrine gland function. These findings resulted from studies cloning and characterizing the five receptors for the melanocortin peptides, and analyzing the pharmacological and physiological functions of these receptors. Cone’s group provided the genetic and pharmacological validation of the melanocortin-4 and melanocortin-3 receptors as critical regulators of energy homeostasis, leading to the discovery of mutations in the MC4R as the leading cause of syndromic obesity, and development of the first drug for syndromic obesity, the MC4R agonist Imcivree, approved by the FDA in 2020.

Cone has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2010), and the National Academy of Medicine (2016) for his work, and received numerous awards, including the Berson Award, Berthold Memorial Award, Ipsen Prize, and the Rolf Luft Prize.

Anne White, FSB, is Professor of Endocrinology at the University of Manchester. Her research passion is the processing of POMC to ACTH and MSH peptides and their actions both in the stress axis and in neuropeptide networks. Anne has over 160 publications, in addition to numerous chapters and reviews.

Her research has led to ground-breaking changes in the way ACTH is measured in most hospital labs and her original research into monoclonal antibodies to many regions in POMC. These antibodies are also utilised in the diagnostic evaluation of POMC and proACTH proteins, as POMC is not processed to ACTH in some tumours.

Anne has had some wonderful collaborations, such as those studying children with POMC mutations, investigations of POMC and glucocorticoid receptors in lung cancer and the role of POMC in maternal programming. More recently, her research has focussed on the implications of chronic glucocorticoid treatment causing metabolic syndrome by affecting POMC and AgRP regulation of energy balance. This passion for POMC resulted in the award of the Jubilee Medal in 2020 by the Society for Endocrinology.

Along the way, a Royal Society Research Fellowship with Astra Zeneca studying 11beta-HSD1 inhibitors and implications for the HPA axis led to other successful partnerships with industry and a role as Dean for Business Development at the University of Manchester. In parallel, Anne has been on the Executive Board of the Society for Endocrinology and Bioscientifica.

Kate Ellacott is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Neuroscience and Director of Postgraduate Research for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Exeter, UK.

Kate's long-standing research interest is understanding the neural circuits underlying the regulation of food intake and body weight during normal physiology and in the course of disease. The current focus of her research group understanding how glial cells are involved in these processes. She has a longstanding interest in refining pre-clinical models of metabolic physiology. Kate is currently the Deputy President and general secretary of the British Society for Neuroendocrinology.