The 2027 Bayliss-Starling Prize Lecture has been awarded to Dr Eleanor Raffan by the Physiological Society. Donated by the Bayliss and Starling Society, the annual lecture is awarded to a mid-career physiologist to celebrate a discrete package of work that has made a significant impact on physiological understanding. Dr Raffan will give a lecture at a scientific event organised by the Society in 2027.
Dr Raffan's work focuses on the genetic, molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying obesity and metabolic disease. She draws on her background as a veterinary surgeon to study spontaneously occurring veterinary phenotypes, particularly in dogs, capitalising on the advantages for trait mapping that stem from selective breeding in domesticated species to identify novel genes and mutations associated with metabolic dysfunction. The Raffan Lab deploys a range of techniques to follow up those findings with molecular studies and measures of eating behaviour and energy expenditure in pet dogs to understand how they cause obesity.
