We are delighted to tell you that Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly and Professor Sadaf Farooqi have been awarded the Croonian Medal of the Royal Society.
Professor Sir O’Rahilly FRS FMedSci and Professor Farooqi FRS FMedSci have been awarded the Croonian Medal “for their seminal discoveries regarding the control of human body weight, resulting in novel diagnostics and therapies, which improve human health”.
The Croonian Medal has been awarded annually since 1728 and its recipients deliver the premier biological science lecture of the Royal Society. Steve and Sadaf are delighted to accept this honour on behalf of the many colleagues in Cambridge who have made crucial contributions to the work, their collaborators around the world and, above all, the patients and other participants who have generously volunteered for their research studies.
“It is an enormous honour to have our work recognised in this way by the Royal Society, one of the world’s pre-eminent scientific societies. The list of previous Croonian Lecturers contains many legendary names and to find oneself on that list is as surprising as it is humbling.”
I hope that the award of this highly prestigious prize to a pair of physician scientists will help inspire young doctors to bring their natural curiosity to bear on patients presenting to them with patterns of disease that seem to be atypical. The rigorous investigation of such patients can provide them with meaningful diagnoses and open up opportunities for novel approaches to their treatment, while also illuminating new areas of human biology.”
Steve O’Rahilly
“I am absolutely delighted that our work has been recognised by the Royal Society. To receive the award alongside my longstanding mentor Stephen O’Rahilly, who taught me how basic scientific principles can be applied to the study of clinical conditions, is a huge honour. This prestigious Award recognises our work as Clinician Scientists, the contributions of many team members past and present, our collaborators across the world and the patients and their families who have contributed to our research.”
Sadaf Farooqi
The Croonian medal has an associated prize lecture, traditionally given from the Royal Society, and it is hoped that this will take place during April 2022.
The full list of medals and awards, including their description and past winners can be found on the Royal Society website: https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/
