Jacobs School professor to receive prestigious award for his work in diabetes research

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, will be honored with the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation’s 2020 Life Time Contribution Award in Chennai, India, in July. He is the eighth scientist to receive the award.

Dandona, one of the world’s leading experts in the treatment of diabetes and vascular disease, also has been invited to deliver two lectures during the International Diabetes Update 2020.

The renowned researcher’s work on diabetes and metabolic disorders includes leading clinical trials for new treatments to exploring basic scientific mechanisms involved in both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

His team has made groundbreaking discoveries in a wide range of areas.

They include uncovering links between obesity, diabetes and other health conditions; exploring novel treatments for diabetes and the use of medications designed for Type 2 diabetes to treat patients with Type 1, which has resulted in the licensing of dapagliflozin as the first oral treatment of Type 1 diabetes in Europe and Japan; and drawing new connections between inflammation, obesity and diabetes.

Dandona has mentored many of the current leaders in diabetes health care and research, and his team’s dedication to teaching and training has led to the development of one of the largest endocrinology fellowship programs in the United States. Seventy-two fellows have graduated from this program, and are now located all over the U.S., the Middle East and India.

He has previously been honored by the Ceylon (Sri Lanka) College of Physicians with the Fernando Award, their highest honor. He was awarded the Banting Medal by the Endocrine Society of India, and Kyung Hee University of Korea made him a “Global Eminent Scholar.”

He has written more than 550 peer-reviewed publications and more than 1,000 additional publications. He has served on the editorial boards of Diabetes Care and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, both of which are major journals in the field of diabetes and endocrinology. He also founded the journal Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders.

Dandona has been a faculty member in the Department of Medicine at UB and chief of endocrinology at Kaleida Health since 1991. He also is the director of the Diabetes and Endocrinology Center of Western New York, which is sponsored by the Jacobs School and Kaleida.

A 2012 recipient of the UB Presidential Award for Faculty Excellence, Dandona received a PhD from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He holds a MBBS —bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery — from All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

The Madras Diabetes Research Foundation was founded by V. Mohan MD, PhD, in 1996. He also established Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialties Centre, among the world’s largest diabetes care networks, made up of more than 50 diabetes centers in India, the Middle East and Africa, caring for 500,000 diabetic patients.

The Foundation’s annual three-day Diabetes Update symposium has grown to attract more than 3,000 doctors from around the world.

According to Mohan, The MDRF Life Time Contribution Award was instituted to honor medical scientists who have contributed significantly to the field of medicine, particularly in the field of diabetes, over their lifetime. The number and impact of the candidates’ publications and their contribution to society are the main criteria.