I am a retired specialist and researcher in diabetes, with >250 listed publications. I have edited or co-edited several books on diabetes and was responsible for the diabetes section of the first 7 editions of Kumar and Clarke, a successful student textbook of medicine. My first single-author book, The Species that Changed Itself , came out in Penguin in 2019. I was Editor-in-Chief of Diabetologia, the European Journal of Diabetes, between 2004-2011. I chaired the Special Advisory Group on Endocrinology for EMA over a similar period. In 2017 I chaired the WHO Committee on Essential Medicines for Diabetes. Other tasks, awards etc are listed in my CV. I specialized in the clinical care of people with diabetes from 1965-2011, which has given me a ~50-year overview of the history of the subject.

I knew many for the characters referred to in the book and interviewed some of them for it.