A BRC-supported researcher has been awarded £360,000 to extend ground breaking research into obesity.
Dr Rachel Batterham hit the headlines in July when she led an international team of researchers revealing why people with a variation of the FTO gene are 70 per cent more likely to become obese.
Now the Rosetrees Trust has granted Dr Batterham its largest single research grant yet, in order to extend her work and translate initial findings into preventative and therapeutic strategies for obesity.
Dr Batterham said: “Variants within the FTO gene, which affects 1 in 6 of the general population, are known to strongly associate with obesity. Recently we have shown that circulating ghrelin levels, a key hormone that stimulates food intake, remain abnormally high after eating in subjects with the obesity-risk FTO gene variants.
“These findings suggest that therapeutic strategies targeting the ghrelin system may be particularly effective in the fight against obesity in people carrying the FTO obesity-risk gene. This new award from the Rosetrees Trust will enable us to translate our initial exciting findings into genotype specific preventative and therapeutic strategy for obesity”.
To read our original coverage Researchers reveal how ‘obesity gene’ triggers weight gain click here.
