Professor Harry Keen - Nutrition and Metabolic Medicine

Harry Keen CBE MD FRCP qualified in medicine in 1948 at St Mary's Hospital Medical School where he worked as Research Fellow and Medical Registrar to Sir George Pickering and Sir Stanley Peart in the Professorial Medical Unit after junior posts at St Mary's, the West Middlesex and Paddington General Hospitals and service in the Royal Army Medical Corps.  From 1953-60 he also served as Senior Clinical Assistant to Dr R D Lawrence and Dr W G Oakley in the Diabetic Department, King's College Hospital.  Following a US Public Health Service International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship with Dr James B Field MD at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA (1960-61), he returned to the Department of Medicine, Guy's Hospital working with Lord Butterfield as Senior Lecturer, Reader, and from 1971, as Professor of Human Metabolism, heading the Academic Unit for Metabolic Medicine and as Consultant Physician till his retirement in 1990.  He continues work in the Department, School and University as Professor and Consultant Physician Emeritus.

For the past 45 years his main research and clinical interests have centred upon diabetes and its complications in man.  His work has included basic laboratory studies related to insulin, diabetes and their effects on tissues and cells, clinical research in individuals and groups of patients, and clinical epidemiology and trials related to diabetes and its complications in human populations.  He has published approximately 350 papers, reviews and book chapters, has been Editor and co-Editor of five books and Editor and Assistant Editor of six journals.  His honours have included Visiting Professor Tokyo University (1973), Areteus Lecturer of the Hellenic Diabetes Association (1978), Banting Memorial Lecturer of the British Diabetic Association (1984), Claude Bernard Lecturer of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (1987), Copp Lecturer, Kelly M West Lecturer, and Harold Rifkin Distinguished Fellow of the American Diabetes Association (1979, 1987 and 1989), James Watt Lecturer of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1988), Kellion Visiting Professor of the Australasian Diabetes Society (1987), Kroc Lecturer of the University of Western Ontario (1989) and Sushruta Lecturer of the Indian Medical Association (1994).   He presented the first Donald Chesworth Memorial Lecture on Equity, Ethnicity and Health in London University in March 1998, received the Juhling  Award for Diabetes Research and was first recipient of the United Nations/UNESCO Hellmut Mehnert Prize for the Prevention of Diabetes and its Complications the same year.  He received the Sir Alastair MacIntyre Distinguished Award, University of the West Indies and Novartis Distinguished Service Award UK in 1999, the Turkish Diabetes Foundation Millennial Award in 2000, the Arnold Bloom Lecture in 2001, the Fellowship of the Romanian Academy of Medicine and the Order of IDF-Europe Award in 2002.   He was appointed CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of June 1998.

As Director of the Diabetes and Metabolism Unit, he has been Hon Consultant Physician to the Guy's Group of Hospitals since 1967 and actively involved in research, clinical care and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching throughout.  From 1985 till 1990 he was Director of Medicine at Guy's Hospital, Chairman of the British Diabetic Association (1990 to 1996), elected Honorary President of the International Diabetes Federation in 1991, Chairman the WHO Expert Committee on Diabetes in 1980 and 1985, member of the WHO Committee on Prevention of Diabetes in 1994 and 1997, of the US National Diabetes Data Group and American Diabetes Association Expert Committee on Diabetes in 1979 and 1997 and of the US NIH (NIDDK) DSQ Committee of the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) from 1985. He served on the Committee for the Safety of Medicines and was a Medicines Commissioner of the UK Department of Health (1984-90), on the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA) from 1973 to 1991, chairing its Panels on Very Low Calorie Diets and on Sugars and Human Health.  He has been a member of the Medical Advisory Panel of the Independent Television Commission since 1976, of the Rank Prize Funds (Nutrition) Committee since 1988, is chairman of Diabetes Network International from 2000 and Editorial Board Member, Diabetes Care from 2001.  Appointed Emeritus Professor of the University of London Faculty of Medicine in 1990, he continues clinical. research and teaching activities at the Guy’s Hospital Campus of the (now) King’s College London School of Medicine, London (GKT), chairs clinical research and safety committees and the Advisory Board of Warwick Diabetes Care, is actively involved with the implementation of the WHO/IDF St Vincent Declaration for Diabetes in Europe and the UK and, as President of the NHS Support Federation, concerned with the promotion and development of national health services in Britain.

Pat Judd is Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics in the Lancashire School of Health and Postgraduate Medicine.    Trained as a dietitian,  she worked in NHS hospitals  for several years, specialising in paediatrics and renal disease, before returning to University  to study for an MSc in Nutrition. 

Further research led to a PhD from London University in 1980 and Pat taught nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London for 25 years before  moving to her current post in 2001.  Although  previously most  involved  in the  pre and post–registration of dietitians, more  recently her  teaching  has covered a wide range of topics in nutrition.

Pat has a wide range of research interests  and has published in various fields including the effects  of dietary fibre and other plant constituents on blood lipids and blood glucose, the role of probiotics and prebiotics in health and disease, diet and breast cancer   and  nutrition in ethnic minority groups.  She is also currently undertaking  research into dietetic education and training in the UK .