Dr Sadaf Farooqi

University position

Senior Research Associate

Dr Sadaf Farooqi is pleased to consider applications from prospective PhD students.

Departments

Department of Clinical Biochemistry

Institutes

Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR)

Email

isf20@cam.ac.uk

Home page

http://www.mrl.ims.cam.ac.uk

Research Themes

Clinical and Veterinary Neuroscience

Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience

The Cambridge Neuroscience Community

Interests

Using a candidate gene approach in patients with severe, early onset obesity recruited to the Genetics Of Obesity Study (GOOS), we have identified patients with mutations in genes encoding leptin, the leptin receptor and targets of leptin action (including the melanocortin 4 receptor, MC4R). We have demonstrated that the central leptin-melanocortin axis plays a critical role in the regulation of human food intake. We are currently using neuroimaging particularly functional MRI to study the brain response to hunger and satiety in defined subsets of patients with molecularly defined causes for their obesity.

Research Focus

Keywords

appetite

hypothalamus

obesity

genetics

Clinical conditions

Obesity

Equipment

Behavioural analysis

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Collaborators

Cambridge

Ed Bullmore

Paul Fletcher

Andrew Lawrence

Key publications

Farooqi IS, Wangensteen T, Collins S, Kimber W, Matarese G, Keogh JM, Lank E, Bottomley B, Lopez-Fernandez J, Ferraz-Amaro I, Dattani MT, Ercan O, Myhre AG, Retterstol L, Stanhope R, Edge JA, McKenzie S, Lessan N, Ghodsi M, De Rosa V, Perna F, Fontana S, Barroso I, Undlien DE, O’Rahilly S (2007), “Clinical and Molecular Genetic Spectrum of Congenital Leptin Receptor Deficiency” New Eng J 356(3):237-47 Details

Gray J, Yeo GSH, Cox JJ, Morton J, Adlam AL, Keogh JM, Yanovski JA, El Gharbawy A, Han JC, Tung YCL, Hodges JR, Raymond FL, O'Rahilly S, Farooqi IS (2006), “Hyperphagia, Severe Obesity, Impaired Cognitive Function, and Hyperactivity Associated With Functional Loss of One Copy of the Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) Gene” Diabetes 55(12):3366-3371

Yeo G, Connie Hung C, Rochford J, Keogh J, Gray J, Sivaramakrishnan S, O'Rahilly S, Farooqi IS (2004), “A de novo mutation affecting human TrkB associated with severe obesity and developmental delay” Nat Neurosci 7(11):1187-9 Details

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