HSPH professor awarded for diabetes research

Columbia University Medical Center presented the 2010 Naomi Berrie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Diabetes Research to Gökhan S. Hotamisligil, the James Stevens Simmons Professor of Genetics and Metabolism and the chair of the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health. Hotamisligil was honored on Nov. 20 for his important advances in understanding the molecular basis for links between obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

“Gökhan Hotamisligil’s group studies have demonstrated that inflammation plays an important role in obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes,” said Rudolph Leibel, co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, and chairman of the selection committee. “This work has led to novel ideas for the treatment of these disorders and their consequences.”

Established by the Russell Berrie Foundation in 2000, the award was designed to promote and reward outstanding achievement in the field, while simultaneously helping to promote important scientific collaborations across institutions and furthering the careers of especially promising young diabetes investigators. Each year, the recipient — a senior scientist outside Columbia who has made major contributions to diabetes research — is given $100,000 to support a two-year research fellowship for a student or research fellow in his or her laboratory.