Rachel Batterham
This profile was originally published as part of the MRC Annual Review 06/07: People behind discovery. The review tells the stories of just a handful of MRC scientists, the work they do and the career paths they have chosen. It is available for reference purposes only.
Born: November 1970 in Peterborough, grew up in Bourne in Lincolnshire
Education: BSc (Hons) in Physiology and Biomedical Science (Imperial College London); MBBS (Distinction) St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, Imperial College London; MSc (Distinction) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (King’s College London); PhD Imperial College London.
Awards: 2005 G.J. Mendel Award for the top British young researcher; 2004 European Association for the Study of Obesity, Young Investigator Award; 2003 BUPA Foundation Research Award
Current job titles: Reader in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity and Honorary Consultant.
“I’m trying to gain an increased understanding of the different behavioural characteristics of obese people, an understanding of their drives to eat and patterns of eating behaviour. My research is moving more towards linking these complicated factors with what’s going on at a molecular level. As a diabetes/obesity specialist I want to understand the reasons for obesity, whether it’s evolutionary, genetic or environmental.
The thing I enjoy so much is that my work has direct application to people. I always wanted to do medicine, since I visited my grandmother in hospital at the age of four. I trained at St Mary’s in London. During my medical studies, I took an additional BSc in physiology which gave me my first brief glimpse of research.
It was during a house job at St Mary’s that I decided to focus on endocrinology and diabetes – I thought this was a particularly interesting field encompassing a broad range of diseases and affecting all age groups. During specialist registrar training most doctors carry out a period of research.
I undertook a PhD focusing on appetite regulation and loved it – I haven’t stopped doing research since. I went from my PhD straight on to my current MRC/Academy of Medical Sciences Clinician Scientist Fellowship. During this time I completed my specialist training in general internal medicine and endocrinology/diabetes.
Currently I spend about 10 per cent of my time seeing patients and the rest doing research. The ratio of lab to clinical research I do varies with what I’m working on at the time and comes and goes with specific clinical trials. But mostly my job is very lab based – working with mice, studying hormones in human and mouse samples, microscope work, molecular biology and biochemistry. Because I enjoy it so much, I work most weekends and even Easter and Christmas!”