Dr. Marc Donath, Clinic of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Department of Medicine, University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland

Dr. Donath is a very productive and imaginative diabetes investigator. Over the past few years he has published a series of remarkable studies on the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes which bring an original and novel understanding to the field. His work has provided insights into the etiology of beta cell failure in the diabetic state, and has implications for the understanding of the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and for the development of novel pharmacological principles.

 

 

Gianluca Perseghin, Associate Professor of Medical Technical Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy and Senior Investigator of the Istituto Scientifico H San Raffaele in Milano.

He used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Spectroscopy (MRS) to study non-invasively organ and tissue metabolism in relation to the metabolic syndrome and diabetes. He demonstrated abnormalities in skeletal muscle and liver fatty acids metabolism in conditions of insulin resistance in humans underlying the pathogenic relevance of ectopic fat accumulation. More recently he developed cardiac MRS techniques for the study of cardiac energy metabolism in vivo in these conditions. Gianluca Perseghin was acknowledged as the recipient of the G.B. Morgagni Prize Silver Medal for young European Scientists actively involved in research into type 2 diabetes, its complications and other related metabolic disorders in 2004. He was also acknowledged as a leading researcher in the field of Diabetes in Italy in 2007 and was awarded the Italian Diabetes Society (SID) Alcmeone Prize and Servier Research Lecture in Diabetes.