Professor of Medicine and Director of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at King’s College London, Graham Lord has made important contributions in three areas of biomedical science. He identified the adipocyte-derived hormone leptin as a key molecular link between adaptive T cell immunity and the metabolic system. He later studied the molecular regulation of TH1 immunity by the transcription factor T-bet and discovered that the primary function of T-bet was to regulate innate immunity, mapping the direct binding sites of T-bet across the murine and human genomes. He also has an active experimental programme in T cell therapy for inflammatory bowel disease.