Professor Wiebke Arlt MD DSc FRCP FMedSci

• Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences 2010
• Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians 2006
• DSc 2001
• CCT in General Medicine and Endocrinology & Diabetes 1998
• MD 1993
• MBChB 1990

Wiebke Arlt qualified in medicine at the University of Cologne, Germany, in 1990. Three years later she obtained an academic MD degree with a thesis on the effects of suramin on adrenal function in sleeping sickness and adrenocortical carcinoma. After her core medical training, she trained in Endocrinology from 1994 to 1998 under the auspices of Professor Bruno Allolio at the University Hospital Würzburg, Germany. Supported by a German Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant, she then spent two years in the Molecular Endocrinology Lab of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), hosted by Walter Miller. Following her return to Wuerzburg in 2001, she was appointed Consultant Endocrinologist. She obtained a prestigious Heisenberg Fellowship from the German Research Council and moved to Birmingham in October 2002, initially as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow following an invitation by Paul Stewart. In 2004, she obtained an MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship and was appointed Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham. This was followed by her promotion to Chair of Medicine in 2006 and to Head of the Centre for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism in 2008. She was awarded the William Withering Chair of Medicine in 2014 and was Director of the newly founded Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research from 2015-2022.

• MBChB – Endocrinology (Years 1 & 2)
• BMedSc – Molecular Endocrinology (Year 3)

Wiebke Arlt regulary acts as primary and secondary supervisor for basic scientists and clinical research training fellows and is a supervisor on the Wellcome and MRC Doctoral Training Programmes of the University of Birmingham.

Wiebke’s research focus is the exploration of the role of steroid synthesis and metabolism in human health and disease. Her work has identified the key role of adrenal androgens in women, establishing DHEA replacement in women with adrenal insufficiency (N Engl J Med 1999). She has discovered the molecular basis of novel androgen excess disorders (POR deficiency, Lancet 2004; PAPSS2 deficiency, N Engl J Med 2009), leading to new insights into pathways of human androgen synthesis and metabolism.

As a Wellcome Trust Investigator, she applies an integrated systems medicine approach to the dissection of androgen excess and metabolic dysfunction in the context of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). To this end, she combines state-of-the-art human in vivo physiology, innovative ex vivo and in vitro approaches and the exploration of the steroid and global metabolome by machine learning-based computational tools. Her group also applies this steroid metabolomics approach, the combination of mass spectrometry-based steroid profiling with machine learning-based data analysis, to the delineation of steroid excess and metabolic impact in the context of endocrine hypertension and adrenal tumours.

Wiebke leads the Dissecting Androgen excess and metabolic dysfunction – an Integrated Systems approach to PolyCystic Ovary Syndrome (Daisy PCOS) Research Project. It's a new research study which examines the metabolic nature of PCOS and its links to other health conditions. Please see the new website for more information and about the public engagement programme.

 National Committees (selected):

• Member, MRC Clinical Fellowship Panel
• Member, MRC Experimental Board
• Member, Welcome Trust Science Interview Panel

 International Activities (selected):

• Editor-in-Chief, European Journal of Endocrinology
• Member, Publications Committee, European Society of Endocrinology
• Member, Laureate Award Committee, The Endocrine Society USA
• Chair, Adrenal Incidentaloma Working  Group, and Member of the Steering Committee of the European Network for the Study of Adrenal Tumours
• · Participant and work package leader for steroid metabolome analysis for EU research consortium ENSAT-HT