Fellow

Philippe Froguel, Head of Section of Genomic Medicine, Imperial College, is a clinical scientist who has made very significant achievements in the dissection of the genetic basis of common metabolic conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. His independent academic career began with the identification of glucokinase as the first gene involved in T2D. He than identified a novel gene responsible for T2D, HNF1, involved in beta cell differentiation. He than identified a polymorphism in the Kir 6.2 potassium channel involved in determining an increases risk for T2D. During the same period his group identified the involvement of the leptin and melanocortin 4 receptor genes in human obesity. In 2000 he moved to the UK where, amongst other observations, he demonstrated the involvement of Kir 6.2 and ABCC8 in neonatal diabetes, of ENPP1/PC1, a natural inhibitor of the insulin receptor, in obesity and diabetes. Froguel also continues to be involved as Directeur de Recherche of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and of a Research Unit at the Pasteur Institute in Lille, France.