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Image: Endocrinology and metabolism

Endocrine and metabolic sciences

Sustaining a healthy life course

Hormonal control of metabolism and nutrition are fundamental to health throughout the life course, from pre-conception to later life. Dysregulation of these controls play a key role in the development of diseases, but also offer potential targets for treatment and intervention.

Our bodies have evolved intricate mechanisms to control body function, but our rapidly changing environment and lifestyles mean our bodies are no longer optimally adapted.

The availability of cheap, energy-dense foods coupled with much more sedentary lives, and a 24-hour culture which means our behaviour has become desynchronised from our biological clocks, has led to excess weight gain and an increase in metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes and hyperlipidaemia, as well as cardiovascular disease.

This increase poses a major global health challenge. At Manchester, we cover all aspects of research into the understanding and prevention of these diseases which claim millions of lives worldwide every year.

Combating metabolic disease

Our research covers an understanding of how the body regulates appetite, body weight and circulating levels of nutrients.

We also explore what goes wrong to allow the development of obesity and diabetes, and how the primary and secondary effects of the diseases are treated.

This is achieved through world-leading basic and translational research, epidemiology and preventive medicine.

The current realignment of health and social care in Greater Manchester (DevoMANC), coupled to advanced health informatics, puts Manchester in a unique position for integrated research, innovation and implementation.

 
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Featured researchers

Dr Martin Rutter

Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Physician

Dr Martin Rutter

Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Physician Martin is an Honorary Consultant Physician at Manchester Diabetes Centre, Manchester Royal infirmary, where he is lead physician for the islet cell transplantation service and co-lead for the diabetes-renal service. His main research interest is the pathogenesis of cardiometabolic diseases.

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Professor Simon Luckman

Brackenbury Chair of Physiology

Professor Simon Luckman

Simon’s research focuses on the brain and how it regulates appetite, blood glucose levels, body weight and energy expenditure. Research in his lab uses a multidisciplinary approach covering genes, cells, tissues and behaviour, to explore whether they can be manipulated to control metabolic diseases.

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Dr David Bechtold

Senior Lecturer

David Bechtold

David is interested in the neurological and endocrine systems that govern energy balance, with a particular interest in the role played by the circadian clock in strengthening homeostatic controls, and how clock disruption may contribute to the development and severity of metabolic disease.

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Professor Neil Hanley

Professor of Medicine: Endocrine Science

Professor Neil Hanley

Neil researches human developmental biology, focusing on endocrinology, and associated aspects of stem cell biology. A major interest in his lab is how beta cells develop in the pancreas, and the potential for cell replacement and regeneration of beta cells as a novel therapy for diabetes.

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Our researchers

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£35m

Training and education

We are strongly committed to training and education at both postgraduate and undergraduate level.

Many of our PIs are members of flagship funded PhD programmes within the Faculty:

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Contact us

Research enquiries

Professor Simon Luckman

 

Fellowships

Professor Neil Hanley

PhD studentships

Dr Karen Piper-Hanley

 

Industrial partnerships

Professor Shaheen Hamdy