Professor Robert Semple
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Prof Semple is Professor of Translational Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Consultant Diabetologist/with NHS Lothian. He trained in Biochemistry and then in Medicine in Cambridge, with clinical postgraduate training in London and Cambridge, including a PhD in the laboratory of Prof. Sir Stephen O’Rahilly. Working at the Institute of Metabolic Science in Cambridge until moving to the University of Edinburgh in 2017, his clinical and research interests have centred on acquired and monogenic forms of insulin resistant diabetes, lipodystrophy and hypoglycaemia. He uses such rare human conditions to improve understanding of the cause of common “insulin resistance”, combining them with monogenic disease modelling in animals, cells and in vitro. He is also keenly interested in the mechanisms linking human insulin resistance to major disease, in the mechanisms determining metabolic resilience with age, and in translating research findings into clinical benefits for patients.
