Australasian Diabetes Congress 2020

In 1994, he was appointed Director of Public Health for Greater Glasgow Health Board and in 2005 he became Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. He was Knighted in 2011 and in 2014, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, presented him with a lifetime achievement award for public service from the Scottish Government.

In April 2014 he became Professor of Global Public Health at Strathclyde University. In addition to research publication and supervision of doctoral students, Sir Harry leads on a number of major, multi-agency projects and is Chair of the University’s Centre for Health Policy. He is a regular invited keynote speaker to local, national and international events and to academic programmes. Among many appointments, he is a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; a member of Diabetes UK Board; Chair of the Wheatley Foundation; a member of Johnson & Johnson’s Impact Investment Advisory Committee and a member of the Health Foundation’s Sciana Programme for international health leaders.

His main clinical specialities are childhood diabetes and hypoglycemia. His research has focused on the growth and development of the pancreatic islets. He has also made important contributions in the field of congenital hyperinsulinism and neonatal diabetes. Lately, he has shifted his main area of interest into the use of human pluripotent stem cells and genome editing to study beta-cell pathophysiology.

Her work has been highlighted across national media outlets, such as NPR Science Friday and CNN, and has influenced both policy and practice. Her recent research focused on the underground exchange of diabetes medication and supplies due to high cost influenced the passing of Utah HB207, the strongest legislation in the nation to date focused on improving insulin access. Her research focused on online peer support that has influenced national recommendations in diabetes care. Dr. Litchman received her research doctorate and Master’s degree from the University of Utah College of Nursing. She is a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP), Research Committee Chair for the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists, and member of the American Diabetes Association Therapeutic Inertia Research Committee.

She has contributed to the design and conduct of several major trials including REWIND, ODYSSEY 3a, SELECT, LENS, REMOVAL, CARDS and CANTOS. Professor Colhoun’s epidemiological research and clinical trials research have impacted on and been cited in clinical guidelines internationally and in national policy for diabetes. Professor Colhoun leads the large Scottish Diabetes Research Network Type 1 Bioresource research collaboration and the databasing and provisioning of national e-health record diabetes data to the Scottish Diabetes Research Network. During the COVID-19 epidemic she has Co-Chaired the COVID-19 Modelling & Research cell at Public Health Scotland. She has been a member of the Wellcome Trust Science Strategy Advisory Board, the JDRF Strategic Advisory Board and the Diabetes UK Clinical Studies Advisory Group.

Her lab was the first to map the kidney epigenome and catalogue genotype-driven gene-expression variation (eQTL) in human kidneys. Integration of GWAS, eQTL and epigenome data has been essential to prioritize disease-causing genes and variants.

Dr. Susztak generated the first unbiased, comprehensive kidney cell-type atlas using single cell transcriptomics. She identified that specific renal endophenotypes are linked and likely caused by the dysfunction of specific cell types.

In follow-up animal model studies, she conclusively demonstrated that MANBA, DAB2, DACH1 and APOL1 are new kidney disease risk genes. Her work established the role of proximal tubule cells, endolysosomal trafficking, metabolic and developmental pathways in kidney disease development.

Susztak's discoveries span genetics, genomics, epigenetics, molecular biology, physiology and nephrology, and have enormous translational relevance and considerable therapeutic potential.

Dr. Susztak has been the recipient of the 2011 Young Investigator Award of the American Society of Nephrology and American Heart Association; one of the most prestigious award given to researchers under the age of 41 in the field of nephrology. Her laboratory is supported by the National Institute of Health, the American Diabetes Association, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and private sources.

“I think this is a really exciting time in science. New technologies are emerging, which will really accelerate research progress, and I think we have fantastic new discoveries ahead of us in biology.”

Over her career, Professor Apte has served in several senior leadership positions at Faculty, University and Discipline levels, including as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Pancreatology. Professor Apte’s contribution to medical research, tertiary education and the community have been recognised by several major awards in recent years including the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2014, the 2015 NSW Premier's Award for Woman of the Year, the Gastroenterological Society of Australia’s Distinguished Researcher Prize (a prestigious recognition by the peak national body for the Discipline of Gastroenterology) in 2018, and being elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2019.

With NHMRC project grant funding, she established the ANZ Diabetes and Cancer Collaboration (ANZDCC) dataset which is a collaboration of 18 Australian cohort studies with the aim to examine the relationship between diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome and hypertension. Her more recent work involves exploring the trends in diabetes incidence and mortality across the globe and heads a consortium of 23 collaborators to do this work.

As a part of this broader area, she also works on the other large datasets such as the National Diabetes Service Scheme (NDSS) linked to administrative data. Work on the NDSS has led to international status attested by invitations to the Diabetes and Cancer consortium, editor roles at Diabetes Research and Clinical practice and Atherosclerosis, the presidency of the International Diabetes Epidemiology Group in 2015-2017 and to co -chair the current edition (10^th) of the Diabetes Atlas for the International Diabetes Federation.

Professor Magliano has strong epidemiological and biostatistical skills. Fifteen years of teaching of epidemiology for Monash University has meant that her conceptual skills in epidemiology are current. Furthermore, as the senior epidemiologist of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study (AusDiab) for over 15 years, she has acquired real life epidemiological training by working directly in the field, conducting epidemiological analyses. In 2017 she was awarded a NHMRC Senior research fellowship and the Australian Jeff flack data award from the Australian Diabetes Council.

He is a visiting medical officer at the Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney, Australia where he is Director of the Sydney Menopause Centre and the Barbara Gross Research Unit. Until recently he worked at the Moree Aboriginal Health Service. John is a Director of the Women’s Health and Research Institute of Australia (WHRIA). This is a private clinic located in Bathurst St, Sydney which has a large multidisciplinary group of health practitioners offering clinical and research services. He is a member of the Breast Cancer MDT at Prince of Wales Hospital Randwick.

His research and clinical interests include managing menopause after breast cancer, infertility, early menopause, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), amenorrhoea, osteoporosis, PMDD, biofilms, hormone replacement therapy as well as herbal medicine.

In 2007 Melkam moved to Canada for postdoctoral training at Montreal Diabetes Research Centre where she worked to characterize the regulation and role of the fatty acid receptor, GPR40 in β-cells in Professor Vincent Poitout’s laboratory. In 2012 Melkam joined Professor Alan Attie’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin for her second post-doctoral fellowship. In the Attie laboratory Melkam studied the involvement of Sorcs1 in the formation and stability of insulin secretory granules. In 2015, Melkam returned to Australia to establish her independent career at the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney. Her lab aims to understand the mechanisms behind insulin secretory granules biogenesis, maturation, stability and secretion.

His group studies i) men with low testosterone, ii) patients with hormone sensitive cancer to understand how reproductive hormones regulate musculoskeletal health and glucose homeostasis.

He has >150 publications and book chapters with >7,000 citations.

Editorial board memberships: Journal of Clinical Endocrinology Metabolism, Journal of the Endocrine Society, Clinical Endocrinology; Associate Editorship, Asian Journal of Andrology.

Committee memberships: US Endocrine Society Endocrine Self-Assessment Program (ESAP); Endocrine Society of Australia Council.

In 2018, Dr Montgomery moved to the University of Melbourne, where she is currently investigating links between perturbations in liver homeostasis and the development of type 2 diabetes, with a special focus on liver-secreted proteins and their effects on glycaemic control.

Her long-term vision has been to characterise these novel immune factors and manipulate them therapeutically using pre-clinical models of immune-driven pathologies. She holds a patent for targeted immunotherapy in metabolic disease which has led to the formation of a spin-off company, Jetra Therapeutics and venture capitalist funding to progress this in Fatty Liver Disease. She has a rapid upward trajectory in research, evident by extensive body of high-quality publications including in Nature Medicine, Oncogene and Gastroenterology. She has been awarded more than $4 million in competitive funding and has won 21 awards to date, including an award from the Children’s Health Foundation in 2019 and the QLD Tall Poppy Award 2020. She is an associate editor for the Clinical and Translational Immunology Journal (impact factor 7.2). She is a well-recognised emerging leader in the field as evidenced by a recent invitation to chair at the Immunology 2020 conference by American Association of Immunology.

For six years, she worked as a researcher at the Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes (ACBRD), studying the psychological, social and behavioural aspects of living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Her special interest and knowledge in diabetes and health psychology helped establish her private psychology practice. Adriana currently consults at OPTIMIND, a multidisciplinary mental health private practice on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, and she also offers telehealth services to people with diabetes from around the country.

In 2012, she joined Inserm unit 1190 - Translational Research for Diabetes, at The University of Lille, on a post-doctoral fellowship to pursue an independent research project on insulin-independent regulation of glucagon secretion with and without current drug therapies using human islets ex-vivo and mouse models of diabetes. She is currently a group leader at Institut Pasteur de Lille continuing in deciphering the mechanisms by which antihyperglycemic drugs regulate glucose homeostasis and normalize pancreatic hormone secretion in diabetes.

She has previously held positions as Manager of Diabetes Education at Diabetes Victoria and Director of Education at the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, and Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes and Monash University in the NHMRC CRE in Patient Safety and Department of Health Science. Virginia’s research interests include diabetes self-management and structured education, diabetes distress and psychological wellbeing, particularly among adolescents with type 1 diabetes. She has 17 peer-reviewed publications related to these areas of research.

She currently also serves as a member of the Diabetes and Endocrine Network- Agency of Clinical Innovation (NSW Health) and was the founder of the PEACE conference. Dr. Howari speaks nationally & internationally on public and health industry platforms and is a freelance writer for health publications. Having lived with type one diabetes for over 27 years she incorporates a unique medical and personal perspective in her proactive educational roles with various institutions and public health sectors. As a media commentator, Dr. Howari has also been interviewed in health magazines, print media, radio, on screen and social media.

Dr. Eckel is past president of the American Heart Association, the Obesity Society and the Association of Patient Oriented Research and is currently president of Medicine and Science of the American Diabetes Association. He Co-Chaired the 2013 ACC/AHA Lifestyle Guideline for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and was a member of the 2013 ACC/AHA Cholesterol Guideline Committee. Dr. Eckel has published nearly 400 articles in peer-reviewed journals and his translational research has used populations, human subjects in the General Clinical Research Center and Clinical Translational Research Center, genetically-modified mice, molecular techniques and tissue culture to pursue mechanistic pathophysiological relationships between metabolic disorders such as obesity/metabolic syndrome/diabetes and CVD.

She reviews new procedures and technology in relation to best diabetes practice implementing state-of-the-art equipment to our hospitals. Irene lectures at the University of Sydney and UTS in both undergraduate and post graduate courses for medical and nursing students. She was the course coordinator at UTS for the Master of Nursing, Nurse Practitioner and The Graduate Certificate in Diabetes Education and Management 2012-2014. Irene is also co-chair of the ACI Diabetes and Endocrine Network.

He co-founded the Australian start-up biotech company Continuum Biosciences in 2017. His laboratory investigates the pathophysiology and treatment of obesity-related disorders including fatty liver disease and obesity-related cancers.

This exploratory work has informed Marian’s current PhD research project at Curtin University. Marian was the recipient of the 2018 Australian Diabetes Research Foundation, Research Fellowship. Her current research interests are facilitating physical activity in the type 1 diabetes population, using structured group education.

She was amongst the first in the world to study the role of fetal programming of early onset metabolic disorders and CKD progression. Her current work examines the effect of maternal influences including obesity, smoking and particulate matters on offspring predisposition to CKD and epigenetic regulation in disease development. She is also developing a novel tool for early diagnosis and examining the effect of novel natural and pharmaceutical therapies for glycaemic control, and renal fibrosis

I have had a number of opportunities to undertake research in both urban and remote communities across the Northern Territory and the Kimberley. I have worked at Menzies School of Health Research for over 11 years across several divisions, including Child Health, Wellbeing and Preventable Chronic Disease, and Tropical and Emerging diseases. During this time, I have been able to connect with participants and build strong relationships based on trust and respect, as well as build on my capacity as a researcher.

In 2016, I had the opportunity to do some qualitative work conducting in-depth interviews with women who had diabetes in pregnancy. This was a lightbulb moment for me where I realized that this is what I am meant to be doing – creating a space that enables Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples voices to be heard within research. This has been my newfound passion within research.

I believe as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers we are accountable not only to our institutions but to our people and our communities. It is our role to be the link between community and institutions. It is our role as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers to empower our people and give a voice back to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

I am dedicated and committed to working towards improving health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I believe that it is my responsibility as an Indigenous researcher to advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their rights. I believe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people must play an imperative role in research, and we need to work together collaboratively to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have an opportunity to provide input into the direction of our research.

His research focusses on improving outcomes for people living with viral hepatitis. He was involved in the discovery of IL28B polymorphism as a predictor of treatment outcome in HCV, and is an active clinical investigator for trials evaluating the efficacy of novel antiviral DAA regimens. With the development of DAA therapy for HCV, he has more recently been actively pursuing the development and evaluation of new models of care for people with HCV, with a focus on prisoners and treatment as prevention to eliminate transmission and reduce prevalence of HCV in Australia. He has published widely in journals including Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Gut and Journal of Hepatology.

In 2020, Benoit joined Prof. Mark Febbraio’s laboratory at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences as a postdoctoral researcher where he will submerge himself in the NAFLD field with a focus on NASH-induced hepatocellular carcinoma.

She is an elected member of the Australian Dietetic Council. In 2019 she was awarded the Michelle Beets award for outstanding achievement in advancement of children’s health and the Hunter Children’s Research Foundation Researcher of the Year.

Her work focuses on dissecting appropriate cellular targets in cancer and identifying novel therapeutic strategies to treat prostate cancer. Her team is internationally-recognised for expertise in patient-derived xenografts (PDXs), which in collaboration with her urology, pathology and oncology colleagues, provides a strong translational approach to address clinically relevant questions. More recently, her team has focused on elucidating the endocrine and metabolic changes that contribute to prostate cancer disease progression including fatty acid metabolism.

As well as her clinical role Cheryl has a strong focus on Health Professional education for nurses, allied health, medical practitioners and students. Cheryl is a member of the clinical advisory committee for Diabetes Victoria, a member of the Medical, Education and Scientific Advisory Board for Diabetes Australia. Cheryl lives with Type 1 diabetes which she manages with a DYI closed loop pump.

Evangeline is passionate about communicating nutritional and food science to the public either as an invited speaker at public events or on radio or television, she is also an author and contributor to The Conversation with over 1.1 million reads. Evangeline's research interests include omega-3 fatty acids, the Mediterranean Dietary pattern for chronic diseases, Sports Nutrition and the Environment-Food nexus.

Her current research continues to explore maternal metabolism, with emphasis on the role of the microbiome.

Heather has worked across several research studies, including the ENDIA study, as a research midwife at the Child Health Research Unit at Barwon Health up until 2016. In addition to her role as a hospital midwife, Heather is the director of Hearten Breastfeeding and Parenting Support – a private IBCLC and childbirth education service in Geelong, Victoria. Heather is also currently completing a Master of Public Health degree at the University of Melbourne.

At UoM, Jennifer’s PhD evaluated the role of the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system in kidney disease, and as a post-doc she moved into the field of diabetic complications and established the Diabetic Retinopathy Laboratory. Interested in inflammation and diabetes, she moved to Monash University to interrogate the contribution of the adaptive immune system and particularly regulatory T cells to neovascular retinopathies including diabetic retinopathy. Jennifer’s research is supported by the NHMRC, JDRF, Diabetes Australia and the CASS Foundation. Jennifer has a long history of working with national and international pharmaceutical companies with the view to clinical translation.

She also co-directs the Children’s Diabetes Centre at Telethon Kids Institute, an integrated Clinical and Research centre, which has exercise as one if its key research themes. She is a past president of the professional society, Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Group.

Nicole also runs a corporate nutrition service for Australia’s largest EAP Provider, Benestar, established in 2014, which specialises in assisting employees with weight management and chronic diseases such as diabetes. Nicole is a guest lecturer for The University of Sydney & University of New South Wales and is a media spokesperson for Dietitian’s Australia. Prior to becoming a dietitian, Nicole worked as a senior manager in the chronic disease management division for Merck, Sharp & Dohme (MSD) pharmaceuticals.

Her current clinical and research interests include pregnancy-related issues in women with renal disease, including all stages of CKD, dialysis and transplant patients, living kidney donors and women with hypertension. She also chairs the CNARTS Clinical Research Group which leads a range of studies addressing patient-centred outcomes in CKD and dialysis patients. Dr Jesudason has been the Clinical Director at Kidney Health Australia since June 2017.

She has been actively involved in various committees both for the ADEA and Dietitians Australia and is a trained DESMOND & SMARTs educator for Diabetes Australia. Her passion for education and training community health workers, nurses and other health care professionals has seen her involvement in a number of diabetes-related international projects including the World Diabetes Foundation project in Papua New Guinea, Diabetes Training and Awareness Project in Kiribati, Pacific Islands and Aus-Aid funded Diabetes training project in India. Her research interests and projects have been presented at state, national and international conferences.

Her two main areas of research include improving the care of children with diabetes and adolescent girls with polycystic ovary syndrome. Dr Peña initiated and led a multidisciplinary evidence based guidelines development group that developed and published the first Australasian Guidelines for assessment and management of children with Type 2 diabetes.

He is currently trying to return to the clinic with human beta cells differentiated from pluripotent stem cells that are seeded into an immunoisolatory bioengineered device and implanted subcutaneously. Dr Tuch spends his non-clinic time in academia (he is a Professor at the University of Sydney and Monash University), the not-for-profit sector (Australia Foundation for Diabetes Research, and NSW Stem Cell Network) and the commercial arena (Living Cell Technologies Ltd).

Renae chairs the Menzies-wide youth working group and in 2019 initiated and led the Northern Territory Youth Health Summit. Renae is also jointly teaching the Qualitative Research Methodology Unit for Menzies’ Master of Public Health.

She is also the Head of Diabetes at Austin Health, where she co-ordinates the clinical care of inpatients and outpatients with diabetes. She heads diabetes and obesity clinical trials at CREDO-Centre for Centre for Research and Education in Diabetes and Obesity and has over 135 publications in leading diabetes and endocrinology journals and has obtained a total of over $7.5 million of research funding, including a recent NHMRC Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies grant.

His awards include the IDEG Peter Bennett award (2011), the ADS Jeff Flack Diabetes Data award (2015), and the ADS Kellion Diabetes award (2018). He has authored over 400 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 35 book chapters, was included in the Thomson Reuters The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (2014) and the Clarivate list of the world’s most Highly Cited Researchers (2017 and 2018).

She lives in rural Victoria, Australia with her beloved alpacas, Westie dog and husband John, where she dabbles in gardening and writes short stories.

My professional qualifications are NSW registered nurse/midwife with a Bachelor of Nursing from the University of Newcastle (1993), and a Masters in Applied Management (Health) through the University of Newcastle and a Certificate 4 in Learning and Assessment.