Professor Ele Ferrannini, University of Pisa, Italy

With a research focus on the role of adipose tissue on diabetes, Ele Ferrannini, Chief of the Metabolism Unit of the National Research Council of Clinical Physiology in Pisa and a Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Pisa School of Medicine is recognized for the significant research conducted throughout his career. In the search for new and better treatments, Professor Ferrannini has made important contributions to understanding the connection between the inability to respond to insulin and the breakdown of glucose in the liver of people with diabetes. Professor Ferrannini and his research team have also made fundamental contributions to understanding the origin and development of high blood pressure in people with diabetes and the relationship between insulin resistance and the body's resulting compensatory insulin production.

 

 

Professor Robert Sherwin, Yale University, New Haven, USA

Robert Sherwin is the C.N.H. Long Professor of Medicine at Yale University. Professor Sherwin's role in the development of insulin pump therapy represents a crucial advance in diabetes patient care. While studying the effect of continuous insulin infusion on the liver's response to glucose, he proposed that continuous subcutaneous infusion via a small pump would provide a relatively safe method of insulin delivery in people with diabetes. Some of Professor Sherwin's other work involved helping to develop the most widely accepted method for measuring the body's cells sensitivity to insulin, a procedure known as the euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp technique.