Francis Finucane is a consultant physician at Galway University Hospitals and an honorary full professor in medicine at the University of Galway. He graduated from RCSI (MB BCh) in 1998 and completed specialist training in endocrinology and general internal medicine in Beaumont Hospital and the Mater Hospital in Dublin, with a clinical research fellowship at St. James’s Hospital, for which he was awarded an MD from the University of Dublin (TCD) in 2008. This work described cardiovascular and metabolic perturbations in Irish children with obesity as well as the (lack of) response to exercise in young patients with type 2 diabetes. Thereafter, he undertook a four-year post-doctoral fellowship at the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, UK, where he led the first trial to show that aerobic exercise reduces liver fat content in humans. He also contributed to genetic epidemiological studies that identified mechanistically important diabetes risk markers, and he devised a new method for measuring whole-body insulin sensitivity, the “leptin to adiponectin ratio” (LAR).

Since returning to Ireland in 2010, Prof. Finucane has established a regional clinical service providing multidisciplinary care to patients with severe and complicated obesity. He was the clinical lead for endocrinology in Galway University Hospitals from 2014 to2018, is a member of several international scientific organisations and was on the steering committee of the European Diabetes Epidemiology Group from 2016-2023. His commitment to lifelong learning and professional development is evident from his completion of an MSc in Clinical Research in 2017 and more recently a PhD in Medicine at the University of Galway (2024). He was an elected council member at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland for two consecutive terms from 2019 to 2024 and was a board member of the National Office for Clinical Audit during that time. He is currently a board member of the Irish Heart Foundation.

He has over 95 peer reviewed publications. He is an avid peer reviewer and is on the editorial board of the journal Obesity Surgery. He was awarded the inaugural Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship from the Saolta Hospital Group in 2019. He is a funded investigator at Cúram. He recently established Ireland’s first and only MSc Obesity in collaboration with his colleagues at the University of Galway and the National Institute of Preventive Cardiology (NIPC). He has won two awards for his teaching to undergraduate medical students in Galway. He has been invited to speak at several prestigious scientific meetings at home and abroad. He has made substantial contributions to debates around obesity and public health policy both nationally and internationally. He is currently leading a major international collaboration between the University of Galway, the University of Cambridge and Malmo University to examine the influence of aerobic exercise on muscle epigenetic profiles in healthy older adults (“MECHANISM”).

His major medium-term priority is the development of an ambitious plan for pragmatic, patient-centred clinical research, through the establishment of a “Centre for Obesity Research, Innovation and Education” at the University of Galway. This will include retrospective and prospective cohort studies and pragmatic clinical trials, the development of innovative medical devices to help to treat obesity more effectively, the delivery of excellent postgraduate educational programmes and the identification and articulation of obesity policy priorities.

Heterogeneity in response to treatment of severe and complicated obesity.

Metabolic changes after obesity surgery.

Extreme phenotypes of insulin resistance.

Type 2 diabetes in young people.

The relationship between adiposity and insulin resistance.

Structured lifestyle modification programmes to reduce cardiovascular risk.

Commercial influences on public health policy.

Commercial determinants of health.

Obesity epidemiology.

Diabetes epidemiology.

Euglycaemic diabetic ketoacidosis and SGLT2i use.

Randomised controlled trials of drug treatment for obesity.

The role of structured lifestyle modification in obesity surgery patients.

The role of structured lifestyle modification in patients taking obesity medications.

Muscle epigenetic changes after aerobic exercise intervention.

The relevance of physiological ketosis in the treatment of obesity and related metabolic disorders.

Course Director, MSc Obesity.

Lecturer, MSc Diabetes.

Lecturer, MSc Radiology.

Lecturer, MB BCh (undergraduate medicine programme).

Clinical Trainer, Basic Specialist Training, RCPI.

Clinical Trainer, Higher Specialist Training (Endo, GIM), RCPI.