Licio Velloso obtained his PhD from the University of Uppsala, Sweden working in the characterization of the pancreatic islet autoantigens in type 1 diabetes. Later on he moved to Boston for a post-doctoral fellowship at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School to work in the cross-talk systems that impair insulin signal transduction. During the last 20 years, working as an independent researcher, Licio Velloso has focused on the characterization of the mechanisms leading to hypothalamic dysfunction in obesity. His work led to the first demonstration of inflammation as an important cause of hypothalamic abnormal function in experimental obesity (Endocrinology 146:4192, 2005 812 citations; J Neuroscience 29:359, 2009, 691 citations).