SOPHIA Project coordinator Carel Le Roux named Researcher of the Year!

UCD Professor and SOPHIA Project coordinator Carel Le Roux has been named Researcher of the Year!

Every year The Irish Research Council (IRC) celebrates the best IRC-funded researchers who are making “highly significant and valuable contributions to knowledge, society, culture and innovation.” The SOPHIA consortium is proud to congratulate SOPHIA Project coordinator, Professor Carel le Roux, on winning this year’s Researcher of the Year award!

Professor Carel le Roux as a driving force in the acknowledgment of obesity as a complex subset of diseases

Professor Le Roux is a leading clinical scientist and expert on how the gut communicates with the brain to control hunger and satiety. He was awarded the prestigious prize for his work developing more effective obesity treatments.

His research has been primarily focused on the impact of diet, medication, exercise, and surgery, and on enhancing gut-brain signalling for the management of obesity. Leading the important work in the SOPHIA project, le Roux has been a major driver in the landmark acknowledgment of obesity as a complex subset of diseases, which provides the basis for exploring new and better treatment options for patients.

Next step to solve the unmet medical need: Unlocking the predictors of obesity

While significant progress has been made, an unmet medical need remains among people living with obesity. Professor Carel le Roux explains the next step, in which he and SOPHIA are actively working towards:

“The Irish Research Council award recognises how the narrative is changing about the disease of obesity. We moved from a position where obesity was thought to be the fault of an individual to now recognising obesity as a subset of biological diseases. The next steps will be to find the keys to unlock the predictors of the diseases of obesity and the predictors for the response to obesity treatments.”

For more information, read the IRC’s article on Professor le Roux’s achievement here.

SOPHIA has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No. 875534. This Joint Undertaking support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and EFPIA and T1D Exchange, JDRF, and Obesity Action Coalition