Professor Giles Yeo MBE

PhD

Professor of Molecular Neuroendocrinology at the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit, University of Cambridge

About me

Giles Yeo received his PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Cambridge in 1998, after which he joined the lab of Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, working on the genetics of severe human obesity.

Giles Yeo is now a programme leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Metabolic Diseases Unit (MDU) in Cambridge and his research currently focuses on the influence of genes on feeding behaviour and body weight. In addition, he is a graduate tutor and fellow of Wolfson College, and Honorary President of the British Dietetic Association. Giles is also a broadcaster and author, presenting science documentaries for the BBC, and hosts a podcast called ‘Dr Giles Yeo Chews The Fat’. His first book ‘Gene Eating’ was published in December 2018, and his second book ‘Why Calories Don’t Count’ came out in June 2021. Giles was appointed an MBE in the Queen’s 2020 birthday honours for services to ‘Research, Communication and Engagement’.

Course

Health Sciences

Interpreting Consumer Genetic Testing

Discover how to interpret consumer genetic testing for your own professional context, with particular focus on understanding its limitations and avoid...

Next course: To be confirmed

Awards

Society for Endocrinology Medal 2022

Appointed MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for services to ‘Research and Communication and Engagement’, 2020.

JBS Haldane Lecturer, 2019 JBS Haldane Lecture 2019 - Giles Yeo - Genetics Society(Opens in a new window)

Publications

HypoMap—a unified single-cell gene expression atlas of the murine hypothalamus(Opens in a new window) (with Paul Klemm and others), October 2022, Nature Metabolism.
Why Calories Don't Count - How we got the science of weight-loss wrong, 2021, Orion.
A survey of the mouse hindbrain in the fed and fasted states using single-nucleus RNA sequencing (Opens in a new window)er 2021, Elsevier BV.
Glucose-dependent Insulinotropic polypeptide receptor-expressing cells in the hypothalamus regulate food intake(Opens in a new window), 2019, Cell Metabolism.
Loss-of-function mutations in the melanocortin 4 receptor in a UK birth cohort(Opens in a new window) (with Kaitlin H Wade and others), June 2021, Springer Science and Business Media.
Gene Eating - The Story of Human Appetite, 2018, Orion.
Presenter on ‘Trust Me I’m A Doctor’ Seasons 7 – 9,(Opens in a new window) 2017 to 2020, BBC2.
Why some humans developed a taste for milk and some didn’t,(Opens in a new window) March 2016, The Conversation.