Prof Amiel is Professor of Diabetes Research Medicine at King’s College London and a senior diabetes consultant at King’s College London. She is a clinician and experimental medicine researcher in diabetes. Prof Amiel trained in medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London and was first house physician and later medical registrar to Prof Harry Keen. She then undertook her research fellowship with Profs Robert Sherwin and Bill Tamborlane, learning techniques for investigating human metabolism, studying changes in insulin sensitivity in childhood and adolescence and starting her life-long interest in the issues of hypoglycaemia in type 1 diabetes treatments. Returning to London, she started to work on subjective awareness and cognitive function in hypoglycaemia. Her first consultant post was at Guy’s, after which she took up the newly-created RD Lawrence Professor of Diabetic Medicine at King’s College London in 1995, the first university chair in Diabetic Medicine in the UK. At King’s collaborated with colleagues in neuroimaging, exploring brain responses to bypoglycaemia and also to food in insulin resistance and obesity. She led the development of the King’s insulin pump programme and with the King’s Liver Transplant Unit and Paediatric Hepatology, started a human islet isolation programme which formed the basis of the first reimbursed program of islet transplantation for hypoglycemia prevention. She worked with Prof Khalida Ismail to work on aspects of mental health in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes and she developed the UK’s DAFNE programme, a structured education programme for flexible insulin self-management for adults with type 1 diabetes, which reduced severe hypoglycemia, with colleagues in Sheffield, North Tyneside and Germany. Currently Prof Amiel is working on the use of cognitive therapies to improve impaired awareness of hypoglycaemia and on a project exploring the impact of Black African ethnicity on metabolic dysregulation in the development of type 2 diabetes. She is also part of HypoRESOLVE, an EU-IMI programme to define hypoglycaemia in terms of patient outcomes. Prof Amiel has contributed to national and international guidelines, chairing the 2015 revision of the UK’s NICE guidelines for the diagnosis and management of type 1 diabetes in adults and contributing to international position statements on the role of surgery in the management of type 2 diabetes, among others. She is an active member of the International Hypoglycaemia Study Group and continues to work with charities and other bodies to improve outcomes of type 1 diabetes, including in her current role as Chairman of Diabetes UK’s Strategic Research Advisory Group (SRAG).

Graeme Bell is the Kovler Family Distinguished Service in Medicine, Human Genetics and Pediatrics at The University of Chicago. He is also Director of the University of Chicago Diabetes Research and Training Center. Dr. Bell has long-standing interest in the molecular biology and genetics of diabetes. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John Buse, MD, PhD is the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor, Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Director of the Diabetes Center, Director of the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute and Executive Associate Dean for Clinical Research at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. Dr. Buse completed service as President for Medicine & Science at the American Diabetes Association in 2008 and as Chair of the National Diabetes Education Program in 2014. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the 2010 Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award and the 2019 American Diabetes Association Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Diabetes Research Award. He has authored more than 400 publications.

Dr. Cherrington received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of New Brunswick in 1967 and his PhD in Physiology from the University of Toronto in 1973, where he worked with Dr. Mladen Vranic. He then undertook postgraduate training with Dr. Rollo Park at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. In 1975, he joined the faculty of Vanderbilt where he currently holds the positions of Professor in the Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics and in the Department of Medicine. He served as Chairman of the Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Department from 1998-2007. He currently holds the Jacquelyn A. Turner and Dr. Dorothy J. Turner Chair in Diabetes Research.

Dr. Cherrington’s work over the years has defined the effects of various hormonal and neuronal factors on liver glucose metabolism. Specifically, he has characterized the effects of insulin, glucagon, cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine on the rates of hepatic glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis in vivo. More recently, he has examined the roles these agents play in regulating glucose production during a variety of stressful situations (exercise, hypoglycemic, illness, or injury). He has also studied the response of the liver to glucose ingestion and has shown that postprandial glycogen deposition is dependent not only on the availability of glucose and insulin, but also equally on an additional neural signal. The nature of the signal and the mechanism by which it works are currently under study. Dr. Cherrington has significantly advanced our understanding of the way in which hormones and neural mediators regulate the ability of the liver to supply glucose in times of need and to store it in times of plenty. He is a recognized worldwide an authority in this area having published over 300 peer-review papers and almost 100 review articles over his career. Dr. Cherrington is also considered an outstanding mentor and educator and has trained 53 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Most of his trainees are now themselves active investigators in the diabetes field. He has served on the editorial boards of the journals Diabetes, Metabolism, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, as associate editor of the American Journal of Physiology and as consulting editor for the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Cherrington has been a member of the American Diabetes Association since 1972. He has served at the local, state and national levels, including membership on numerous committees. In addition to his many appointments, his elected position with the American Diabetes Association include Board of Directors, Tennessee Affiliate 1984-1992), president, Tennessee Affiliate (1990-1991), National Board of Directors (1986-1989 and 2002-2006), and as national president (2004-2005). Dr. Cherrington has received many professional honors over the years, including the Lilly Award, the Rachmiel Levine Award and the Banting Award from the American Diabetes Association, the David Rumbough Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the R.E. Heist Award from the University of Toronto, and the Charles R. Park Faculty Award for Research from Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Danska was born and raised in New York City, and educated at Kenyon College, Cornell University Medical School, The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Stanford University Medical School. She is a Senior Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children and a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at University of Toronto with appointments in the Departments of Immunology, and Medical Biophysics. She has made contributions to understanding immunological, genetic and environmental causes of Type 1 diabetes (T1D), molecular mechanisms of acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL), and innate immune surveillance of leukemia.

Dr. Sabrina Diano is a Tenure Professor in Departments of Cellular & Molecular Physiology, Neurobiology and Comparative Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine and Graduate School. She is also part of the Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism (ICSNM), and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program here at Yale. She graduated with honors from the University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy. She conducted her post doctoral studies here at Yale where she became faculty in 2000.

Her research focuses on CNS (hypothalamic) mechanisms relating to the regulation of energy and glucose homeostasis. Her studies on hypothalamic inter- and intra-cellular mechanisms that regulates energy metabolism add critical information to the current understanding of the central regulation of energy and glucose homeostasis and how alterations in stored energy are sensed in the hypothalamus. The results of her research have important implications for understanding the pathogenesis of metabolic syndrome, obesity and type 2 diabetes, disorders that are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the U.S., and the developed world in general, with the highest financial burden on the National economy.

Decio L. Eizirik, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor at the ULB Center for Diabetes Research (http://lmedex.ulb.ac.be/index.php), Medical Faculty, Universite Libre de Bruxells (ULB), Belgium; Senior Research Fellow at the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute (IBRI; https://www.indianabiosciences.org/) and Visiting Professor at the Danish Diabetes Academy, Copenhagen, Denmark. He has published >350 full papers and reviews in peer-reviewed international journals and has received several national and international prizes, including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Diabetes Care Research Award, 1998, the “2012 Albert Renold Prize Lecture for Outstanding Achievements in Research on the Islets of Langernhans” awarded by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Berlin, Germany, 10.2012 and the “2013 Rumbough Award for outstanding achievements in type 1 diabetes research”, awarded by the JDRF, New York, 12.2013. He is listed by the ISI Essential Science Indicators among the 1% most cited scientists in Clinical Medicine and Biology & Biochemistry, with an h-index of 80. Dr Eizirik has served as Honorary (Scientific) Secretary of the EASD and as Deputy Editor of Diabetologia. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms regulating insulitis and beta cell apoptosis in type 1 diabetes and on the search for novel approaches to prevent the progressive loss of beta cell mass in diabetes.

Dr Denice Feig is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Toronto, and holds a cross-appointment in both the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. She is a Senior Clinician Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tananbaum Research Institute, and an Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences. She is Head of the Diabetes and Endocrine in Pregnancy Program at Mount Sinai Hospital, Chair of the University of Toronto Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group and Past Chair of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Interest Group for the American Diabetes Association. Her research focus is in the area of diabetes in pregnancy and she was awarded the Canadian Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group Award for Excellence.

Dr. Gimeno received her undergraduate training in medicine at the Julius-Maximilians-University in Würzburg, Germany, and obtained a Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA. After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Gimeno joined Millennium Pharmaceuticals to work on novel targets for obesity and diabetes. In 2003, Dr. Gimeno moved to Wyeth (later Pfizer) in Cambridge, USA, where she continued her work in diabetes, and also led projects in obesity and diabetic nephropathy. Dr Gimeno joined Lilly in 2011 as Chief Scientific Officer for diabetes research and assumed her current position in December 2016.

Dr. Gimeno has led numerous drug discovery projects and has been involved in the clinical development of several molecules, including ultrarapid insulin lispro and a novel dual GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonist, tirzepatide. Dr. Gimeno’s scientific contributions include the identification and functional characterization of novel drug targets as well as several candidate therapeutics, resulting in more than 50 publications.

Dr. Hirsch has authored more than 250 research papers. He also has written more than 60 editorials, three commentaries for The Journal of the American Medical Association, numerous book chapters and six books for patients and physicians. He is well known for his yearly “rants” in “Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics”.

From both a research and teaching point of view, Dr. Hirsch has spent his career studying best strategies for the use of insulin therapy and better technology in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Past major clinical research trials include DCCT, ACCORD, STAR-1, the JDRF Sensor Trial, SEARCH, ORIGIN, and ADAG, a variety of important observations with the T1D Exchange and many more involved with insulin therapy, including the impact of glucose control in bone marrow transplant patients. He has also been outspoken about insulin pricing in the US. Currently he is working on identifying atypical forms of diabetes, various systems for automated insulin therapy, skin pathology in insulin pump users, and studies to better understand the physiology of ketogenesis in type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Hirsch has been honored at every level of his career. In 2005, he received the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists’ Distinguished Endocrinologist Award, and in 2013, he received the American Diabetes Association’s Josiah K. Lilly Sr. Distinguished Service Award. In April 2015 he was elected to a Mastership by the American College of Physicians and in 2018 he was honored by the Endocrine Society with the Laureate Award for Outstanding Public Service.

Dr. Hirsch is the former chair of the Professional Practice Committee for the American Diabetes Association and has served as editor-in-chief of two ADA journals, “Clinical Diabetes” and “DOC News”. He is an Associate Editor of “Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics” and has been on the editorial board of “Diabetes Care”. He has also served as a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Amira Klip is a Senior Scientist in the Cell Biology Program of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and a Professor of Paediatrics, Biochemistry, and Physiology at The University of Toronto. She studies insulin action at the cellular and molecular levels and was first to reveal the insulin- and exercise-dependent translocation of glucose transporters from inside the muscle to its surface. Her work focuses on mechanisms that confer insulin resistance to muscle including engagement of the innate immune system, and more recently on insulin and glucose interactions with microvascular cells.

Klip received her PhD in Biochemistry in Mexico City, did postdoctoral training in at the University of Toronto and the ETH in Zurich, and joined Toronto’s SickKids in 1980, where she was an Associate Chief of Research for 18 years and founding director of the Research Training Centre. A former Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Physiology – Endocrinology of Metabolism she also held the Canada Research Chair in Cell Biology of Insulin Action for 14 years. Klip is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, has received distinguished international awards and led advisory panels at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the Leloir Foundation in Buenos Aires and the University of British Columbia. Klip received top awards from the MRC/CIHR (Fellowship, Scholarship, Scientist and Distinguished Scientist) and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Copenhagen. She has authored over 300 original peer-reviewed papers and invited reviews, directed the research of over 50 graduate students and 40 postdoctoral fellows, and is currently the recipient of a CIHR Foundation Grant.

After building her own DIY “artificial pancreas,” Dana Lewis helped found the open source artificial pancreas movement (known as “OpenAPS”), making safe and effective artificial pancreas technology available (sooner) for people with diabetes around the world. She authored the book, Automated Insulin Delivery: How artificial pancreas “closed loop” systems can aid you in living with diabetes to help more people understand automated insulin delivery systems.

Dr. Maahs’ leadership experiences include being a past co-Chair (2013-16) for Protocols and Publications with the Type 1 Diabetes Exchange for which he continues as a Steering Committee member and Director of International Collaborations. This complements his role as Secretary-General for the International Society of Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD, 2016-20) and Editor-in-Chief for the 2018 ISPAD Clinical Practice Consensus Guidelines. He currently serves on the Professional Practice Committee for the American Diabetes Association (ADA, 2016-18), which writes the annual ADA Standards of Care. Previously, he served on the ADA Scientific Sessions committee representing the Council on Youth. He has also served on national committees for the American Heart Association, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, and multiple journal editorial boards and review committees.

His scholarly interest is improving care and preventing complications in people with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Along with Dr Peter Chase, he is author of the 12th and 13th editions of Understanding Diabetes, or ‘Pink Panther,’ which are the most widely used educational books for children newly diagnosed with T1D, distributed internationally by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF). More specifically, he has conducted epidemiologic studies that help generate hypotheses for clinical studies, including trials to develop artificial pancreas systems to improve glucose control, lower disease burden, and prevent diabetic complications. He is author or co-author of over 300 research publications. His multi-disciplinary research has been funded by the JDRF, the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the Helmsley Charitable Trust, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Dr Maahs is Associate Director for the recently formed and NIDDK P30 funded Stanford University Diabetes Research Center (https://sdrc.stanford.edu). His collaborations extend to his role as Principal Investigator (PI) or steering committee member for NIH funded multi-center clinical trials including the FLEX, PERL, and ACTION studies as well as multiple Artificial Pancreas clinical trials. Education, mentorship, and training leadership includes being Program Director with Dr. Georgeanna Klingensmith on the Barbara Davis Center T32 and K12 training grants in Pediatric Endocrinology while at the University of Colorado. He is the PI on the Stanford NIH funded K12 “Training Research Leaders in Type 1 Diabetes.’

While in the Peace Corps, David met his wife, Christine Walravens, who is also a Pediatrician at Stanford. They enjoy outdoor activities and traveling with their children, Nicholas (22) and Natalia (16).

Professor Mbanya initially studied in Cameroon where he obtained his MD in 1979 before continuing his training at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, where he obtained a PhD and eventually MRCP (UK). He is Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, Trieste, Italy, and received a Doctor philosophiae honoris causa from the University of Oslo in 2011 for his outstanding international leadership in the field of diabetes. He is also the recipient of the American Diabetes Association 2004 Harold Rifkin award for Distinguished International Service in the Cause of Diabetes and the 2009 Philip Sherlock Award of the University Outreach Diabetes Group, Jamaica, for his outstanding international service in the field of diabetes.

Professor Mbanya is currently Honorary President of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) after serving as President from 2009-2012. It was during his tenure as Chairman IDF Task Force on Insulin from 1997 – 2012 that there was adoption by pharma of the universal colour code for insulins and the U100 insulin syringes. Furthermore, during his chairmanship of HbA1c International Consensus Group there was Worldwide Standardization of the Haemoglobin A1C Measurement. As IDF President, he was instrumental in the international advocacy efforts for diabetes and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at the United Nations, which led to the passage of the United Nations Resolution on Diabetes and the UN Political Declaration on NCDs in 2011. Professor Mbanya has authored several books and book chapters and has published over 240 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He has served as member of several Regional and global World Health Organization advisory and expert groups.

Prof McCrimmon is currently also Lead Clinician for the Scottish Diabetes Research Network (SDRN), which provides the necessary infrastructure to co-ordinate and enable academic and commercial research throughout Scotland. The SDRN hosts a National Research Register of over 11,000 subjects with diabetes pre-consented to be contacted about clinical trials. The register is directly linked to SCI-diabetes, which contains secure clinical and biochemical data on over 350,000 people with diabetes in Scotland.

Prof McCrimmon serves on Editorial Boards of Diabetologia and Diabetes. He is a panel member for: Medical Research Council Population and Systems Medicine Board, Diabetes UK, Clinical Studies Group Management Committee; Diabetes UK, Intermediate Clinical Fellowships Panel; Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation PEAK Programme; Panel member, International Hypoglycaemia Study Group.

Dr. Russell has been the principal clinical investigator of a collaboration between Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston University to develop a wearable bionic pancreas system for automated glycemic management in people with diabetes mellitus. The technology has been licensed to Beta Bionics, a public benefit corporation, for further development and commercialization in the form of the iLet bionic pancreas. Dr. Russell is the Study Director for the iLet Pivotal Trials, which will begin in the first half of 2020. His other projects include evaluation of continuous glucose monitoring technology, methods for automated management of glucose in hospitalized patients, investigations of methods to improve insulin pharmacokinetics, investigations of stable formulations of glucagon, and development of a device for minimally invasive continuous insulin monitoring.

Dr. Russell’s research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the Banting Foundation, the American Diabetes Association, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Pere Santamaria is Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Director of the Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research Centre at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. He has published over 170 articles and holds 92 patents and has given >250 lectures. He is Scientific Founder of Parvus Therapeutics Inc.

The focus of Santamaria’s scientific work has been to try to understand the immunogenetics and immunopathogenesis of autoimmune disorders, with a particular focus on type 1 diabetes, to try to find targets for therapeutic intervention. Early efforts focused on the relationship between genetic susceptibility and resistance to autoimmunity and T-cell tolerance. This work led to the discovery of a new therapeutic platform for the treatment of chronic inflammatory disorders based on nanomedicine. This therapeutic approach triggers the formation of extensive antigen- and disease-specific networks of regulatory T and B-cells that efficiently suppress the progression of several different autoimmune disorders without compromising normal immunity. Current efforts focus on dissecting the mechanisms that sustain and regulate these regulatory cellular networks, the developmental origin(s) of their cellular components and the molecules that control cell-to-cell communication within the networks. The ultimate goal is to bring this technology to the clinic.

Dr. Umpierrez first joined the faculty at Emory University School of Medicine in 1992. He is the recipient of over 20 teaching awards for Best Clinical Teacher and Best Mentor at Emory University, as well as national awards from the American College of Physicians, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and the American Diabetes Association. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, and ADA ‘Therapy for Diabetes Mellitus and Related Disorders’. He has published more than 350 scientific manuscripts and book chapters. His research interests include mechanisms for beta-cell dysfunction in minority populations and the hospital management of diabetes and hyperglycemia. He heads the Emory Latino Diabetes Education Program, a nationally accredited Spanish Diabetes education program dedicated to providing diabetes education to Latinos.

Understanding disease pathology remains very close to Dr. von Herrath’s heart and Novo Nordisk enabled him to keep an appointment at La Jolla Institute, where he pursues NIH-funded research on the pathology of type 1 and 2 diabetes as part of the national pancreatic organ donor network (nPOD). This is a multinational collaborative effort where data are shared in real time and no intellectual property yet lots of new knowledge on the pathology of type 1 and 2 diabetes is being generated. It is a unique new collaborative paradigm for academic and also industry settings.

Dr Zinman is the recipient of numerous awards including the Charles H. Best Medal for Distinguished Service in the Cause of Diabetes (awarded to the DCCT Investigators), the Frederick G. Banting Award and the Gerald S. Wong Service Award of the Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA). In 2006, he received the American Diabetes Association (ADA)’s Outstanding Physician Clinician Award, and in 2009 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the CDA and the Novartis Prize in Diabetes. In November 2011, Dr Zinman was appointed to the Order of Canada, in recognition of his achievements in diabetes patient care and research. In 2019 was promoted to Officer in the Order of Canada. For the past 3 years, Thomson Reuters has ranked Dr Zinman as among the top 1% of researchers cited in their specific field. He has authored more than 550 publications in national and international journals.