Diabetes Pro Quarterly - Summer 2019 - 17

79TH SCIENTIFIC SESSIONS NEWS
Scientific Sessions Recap continued from page 16
"For the person with diabetes, access is the foundation of optimal
health, outcomes, quality of life, and affordable medical costs,"
Ms. Youssef said. "For the health care system and society, improved access will help to control the rising health impacts and
cost burdens of diabetes."
However, availability and access to diabetes patient education
programs is a significant barrier to overcome, Ms. Youssef acknowledged, noting that DSMES programs are understaffed, underutilized, and unavailable to many, particularly in rural and underserved communities. Medication costs are another huge barrier to
access that Ms. Youssef said the ADA is working hard to address.

In addition, with an estimated one-third of U.S. adults having
prediabetes, Ms. Youssef said there is an ever-increasing need for
access to diabetes prevention services-something that continues to be a major focus of the ADA's Government Affairs and
Advocacy efforts. Although early results of the National Diabetes
Prevention Program are promising, she said, they also highlight
the challenges of translating results of a randomized controlled
trial into real-world settings.
Ms. Youssef encouraged the audience to become advocates for
access to care, education, and medication by signing up at
diabetes.org/advocatesignup.

RESEARCH NEWS

2019 National Scientific & Health Care Achievement Award Recipients Honored
Banting Medal for Scientific
Achievement
Stephen P. O'Rahilly, MD
A professor of clinical biochemistry and
medicine and head of the
Department of Clinical
Biochemistry at the
University of Cambridge, Dr. O'Rahilly is
renowned for his contributions to identifying novel extreme human metabolic
phenotypes, discovering and characterizing numerous genes important in metabolic function and dysfunction, and developing new diagnostic and therapeutic
applications that are now established in
clinical practice. Dr. O'Rahilly's research
has delved into human insulin resistance,
including the discovery of novel genetic
mutations associated with defects in insulin signaling. Through a discovery that
people with dominant negative mutations
in peroxisome proliferator-activated
receptor γ (PPARγ) had severe insulin resistance and hypertension, Dr. O'Rahilly
first demonstrated the importance of
PPARγ in glucose regulation and blood
pressure. He was also the first to identify
and describe several mutations causing
human obesity. Additionally, he established a centrally funded national service
providing diagnostic and therapeutic
input to patients with severe insulin
resistance in the United Kingdom. Dr.
O'Rahilly's illustrious contributions have
been recognized by prestigious honors,
including Foreign Membership in the
National Academy of Sciences (USA),
fellowship of the Royal Society, the Novo
Nordisk/European Association for the

Study of Diabetes International Prize, the
Artois-Baillet Latour Foundation's InbevBaillet-Latour Award, and the Larolinska
Institute's Rolf Luft Award. He launched
the Institute of Metabolic Science in
Cambridge and has mentored many
scientists who are now leaders around the
world.

Outstanding Scientific
Achievement Award
Ismaa Sadaf Farooqi,
MB, ChB (Hons), PhD
Dr. Farooqi is a Wellcome
Trust Principal Research
Fellow and professor
of metabolism and
medicine at the Wellcome-MRC Institute
of Metabolic Science at the University of
Cambridge. An internationally recognized
clinician scientist, Dr. Farooqi has made
seminal contributions to our understanding of the genetic and physiological
mechanisms that underlie severe obesity
and its complications. With her mentor
Dr. Stephen P. O'Rahilly, Dr. Farooqi
played a leading role in identifying and developing the treatment of congenital leptin
deficiency in studies proving that leptin
is an essential regulator of appetite and
body weight in humans. In children with
severe obesity recruited to the Genetics
of Obesity Study, she and her colleagues
identified and characterized several
genetic disorders. Her clinical research has
shown that leptin-melanocortin signaling
affects the intake and rewarding properties
of food and the preference for dietary fat,
re-framing obesity as primarily a disorder
of appetite. Her work demonstrating that

these neural circuits modulate blood
pressure by altering sympathetic nervous
system tone has provided an explanation
for the link between obesity and hypertension. As a result of her work, genetic
analysis is now part of the diagnostic
assessment of severely obese people,
and some children with life-threatening
obesity have been treated with mechanism-based therapies.

Outstanding Achievement in Clinical
Diabetes Research Award
John Buse, MD, PhD
Dr. Buse is the Verne S.
Caviness Distinguished
Professor, chief
of the Division of
Endocrinology, director
of the Diabetes Center, director of the
North Carolina Translational and Clinical
Sciences Institute, and executive associate
dean for clinical research at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Embodying excellence and innovative
leadership, Dr. Buse has led or participated in more than 200 clinical studies
and dozens of epidemiological analyses
and translational projects. His breadth
of investigation ranges from early-stage
clinical characterization of new molecular
entities to seminal trials, including crucial
drug safety outcomes studies. He is
renowned for co-chairing the ACCORD
(Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk
in Diabetes) trial, which demonstrated a
lack of benefit of more intensive goals for
glycemia, blood pressure, and lipids and
for chairing the LEADER (Liraglutide
continued on page 18

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Diabetes Pro Quarterly - Summer 2019

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