Pembroke Fellow awarded Croonian Lecture and Medal 2022

The Royal Society has awarded the 2022 Croonian Medal and Lecture to Pembroke Fellow Professor Sir Stephen O'Rahilly FMedSci FRS (2007) and Professor Sadaf Farooqi FMedSci FRS.

Sir Stephen and Professor Farooqi are Principle Investigators at the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science. They have been recognised for research that has led to "seminal discoveries regarding the control of human body weight, resulting in novel diagnostics and therapies, which improve human health".

It is hoped that they will deliver their lecture in person at the Royal Society in spring 2022. They will also each receive a silver-gilt medal share a gift of £10,000.

The Croonian Medal and Lecture is named in memory of William Croone FRS (1633-1684), a physician and one of the original Fellows of the Royal Society. It is regarded as the premier lecture in the biological sciences. Croone had left plans in his papers to endow two lectureships on his death, one at the Royal Society and one at the Royal College of Physicians, but he had made no provision for them in his Will. His widow, Mary, later bequeathed the means to carry out his intentions. The Royal Society's lecture series began in 1738 and the Royal Society of Physicians' in 1749.

Sir Stephen was awarded the Croonian Medal and Lecture by the Royal College of Physicians in 2011 and is one of only seven people who have received both versions of the award.

More information about the Croonian Medal and Lecture can be found on the Royal Society's website.

Reactions from Sir Stephen O'Rahilly and Professor Farooqi.

Image: royalociety.org