James Law

I am an academic paediatrician interested in diabetes and endocrinology. Working with children is incredibly rewarding, and certainly never dull! I started getting interested in diabetes and endocrinology very early on after finishing medical school - it's a great area to work in clinically as you get to know the children and their families very well and helping them to manage their condition well from the start can have massive life-long impacts for them.

Over recent years, its impossible to avoid the issues of obesity, and paediatrics is no exception to this. However, I've come to realise how little we really understand about it as a condition, about why some people put on weight easily and others seem "resistant"; we have also come to realise that body fat behaves as part of the body's endocrine system, releasing (and responding to) hormones, so I became interested in learning more about these interactions.

This interest has seen my research lead me into the area of brown fat and how it can affect the health of both well people and those with medical problems such as diabetes. With this in mind, I have helped to develop a novel technique for imaging brown fat which avoids the large radiation doses associated the current standard method (PET-CT). My role sees me maintain a balance between clinical work with children, and academic work. This helps to ensure that the academic work is always directed towards improving clinically important problems.

October 2015