Endocrine Society announces winners of organization's prestigious 2014 Laureate Awards

The Endocrine SocietyNov 5 2013

The Endocrine Society today announced it has selected 15 accomplished endocrinologists as winners of the organization's prestigious 2014 Laureate Awards.

Established in 1944, the awards recognize the highest achievements in the endocrinology field, including groundbreaking research and innovations in clinical care. The Endocrine Society will present $105,000 in awards to the winners at ICE/ENDO 2014, the Society's 96th Annual Meeting & Expo, which is being held in conjunction with the 16th International Congress of Endocrinology in Chicago, IL from June 21-24, 2014.

The Endocrine Society's 2014 Laureate Award winners are:

• George P. Chrousos, MD - Fred Conrad Koch Award. This annual award recognizes exceptional contributions to endocrinology and includes a $25,000 honorarium. Chrousos pioneered studies that illuminated the effects of stress at the behavioral, neuroendocrine, cellular and molecular levels and made fundamental contributions to the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of pituitary, adrenal and stress-related pathologies, such as major depression. He is Professor and Chairman of the First Department of Pediatrics at the Aghia Sophia Children's Hospital in Athens, Greece, and a distinguished visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, MD. He was the 2011 John Kluge Chair on Technology and Society at the U.S. Library of Congress and has been the UNESCO Chair on Adolescent Health Care since 2010.

   

• Leslie J. DeGroot, MD - Robert H. Williams Distinguished Leadership Award. This annual award recognizes outstanding leadership in fundamental or clinical endocrinology. Throughout his 60-year career as a scientist, teacher, clinician and administrator, DeGroot has had an enormous impact on the field of endocrinology. He has authored influential textbooks, and his research in thyroidology has touched almost every aspect of the discipline, including thyroid hormone synthesis and action, mechanisms of autoimmune thyroid disease and thyroid cancer. DeGroot is Research Professor at the University of Rhode Island in South Dartmouth, RI.

   

• Elliot J. Rayfield, MD - Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Service Award. This award recognizes distinguished service in the field of endocrinology. During the past decade, Elliot has been the driving force in establishing the Clark T. Sawin Memorial Library and Resource Center, which preserves historical endocrine literature. He has excelled at innovative fundraising approaches for both the library and the Development Committee for The Endocrine Society. He also was instrumental in instituting the Fisher Fellowship Program and Lectureship at ENDO, the Society's annual meeting. Rayfield is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

   
• John P. Bilezikian, MD - Distinguished Educator Award. This annual award recognizes exceptional achievement as an educator in the discipline of endocrinology and metabolism. Bilezikian is a mentor to a generation of trainees, a major innovator of new educational programs, both nationally and internationally, and a tireless advocate for the recruitment of physicians and physician-scientists in endocrinology. He is Chair of the Endocrine Fellows Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that has, for the past 20 years, provided competitive research grants to endocrinology fellows. Bilezikian is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Professor of Medicine and Professor of Pharmacology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

• Robert G. Dluhy, MD - Distinguished Physician Award. This annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to the practice of clinical endocrinology. Dluhy has been a leader in the field of adrenal physiology and pathophysiology for over forty years. His clinical and laboratory discoveries helped define the field of endocrine hypertension. Dluhy is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a senior physician at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston.

   

• Ming-Jer Tsai, PhD, and Sophia Y. Tsai, PhD - Outstanding Achievement in Endocrine Science Award. This award is presented to a basic, clinical or translational scientist for their outstanding recent research efforts. Drs. Ming-Jer Tsai and Sophia Tsai are major contributors to the field of nuclear receptors in development and diseases. Their pioneering works on COUP-TFI and COUP-TFII, not only elucidated the functional importance of orphan nuclear receptors in endocrine and congenital disorders, but also opened up a new research arena for drug targeting of cancer, heart failure and diabetes. Dr. Ming-Jer Tsai is C.C. Bell Distinguished Service Professor and Dr. Sophia Tsai is Gordon Cain Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Texas.

   

• Paul M. Copeland, MD - Outstanding Clinical Practitioner Award. This annual award recognizes extraordinary contributions by a practicing endocrinologist to the endocrine and/or medical community. After an endocrine fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital where he pioneered the evaluation of incidentally discovered adrenal masses, Copeland joined North Shore Medical Center in Salem, MA, and became Chief of Endocrinology. He was one of three endocrinologists chosen as top practitioners in a Boston Magazine survey of 3,700 physicians. He also directs the Diabetes Management Center at the North Shore Medical Center campus in Lynn, MA.

   

• Yutaka Seino, MD, PhD - International Excellence in Endocrinology Award. This award is presented to an endocrinologist who has made exceptional contributions to endocrinology in their own country and/or internationally. Seino is recognized for pioneering efforts to enhance educational opportunities and treatment standards and options for patients with diabetes in Japan and across Asia. He has led the development of professional societies, journals and patient organizations dedicated to the diagnosis and management of diabetes. Seino also has worked tirelessly to build links between the endocrine and diabetes communities in Asia, Europe and North America. Seino made significant contributions in the understanding of incretin and islet cell biology. Seino is President of Kansai Electric Power Hospital in Osaka, Japan. He also serves as Chairman of the Japan Association for Diabetes Education and Care, and Chairman of the Asian Association for the Study of Diabetes.

   

   

• Domenico Accili, MD - Edwin B. Astwood Award Lecture. This annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to research in endocrinology. Accili's new landmark findings in beta-cell differentiation are revolutionizing the understanding of the pathophysiology of diabetes and reshaping the programs for therapy of both type 2 and type 1 diabetes. Accili is the Russell Berrie Foundation Professor of Diabetes (in Medicine) at Columbia University Medical Center and Director of the Columbia University Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center in New York City.

   
• Peter J. Tontonoz, MD, PhD - Gerald D. Aurbach Award Lecture. This annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to research in endocrinology. Tontonoz is an exceptionally accomplished investigator who has worked at the interface between nuclear receptor action, inflammation and metabolic disease. In addition to providing mechanistic insights into the pathobiology of metabolic disease, Tontonoz's work has highlighted key regulatory nodes that are likely to support the development of useful new treatments. Tontonoz is Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

   

• David M. Altshuler, MD, PhD - Roy O. Greep Award Lecture. This annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to research in endocrinology. Altshuler was a chief architect of the SNP Consortium, International Haplotype Map and 1000 Genomes Projects: public private partnerships that characterized and catalogued patterns of sequence variation in the human genome. Altshuler and his colleagues' efforts have made it possible to define the genetic architecture of complex disorders, including his own work on type 2 diabetes, lipids and heart attacks. Altshuler is a Founding Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and serves as the Institute's Deputy Director and Chief Academic Officer. He is a Professor of Genetics and of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital and an Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

   

• James A. Fagin, MD - Clinical Investigator Award Lecture. This annual award honors an internationally recognized clinical investigator who has contributed significantly to the pathogenesis, pathophysiology and therapy of endocrine diseases. Fagin is internationally recognized for his seminal contributions to understanding thyroid cancer pathogenesis, identifying key oncogenic mutations and translating his basic discoveries to develop mechanism-based therapies for patients with metastatic thyroid cancer. Fagin is Chief of the Endocrinology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

   

• W. Lee Kraus, PhD - Ernst Oppenheimer Award. This annual award is presented to a young investigator in recognition of accomplishments in the field of basic or clinical endocrinology. Kraus' groundbreaking research has fundamentally changed scientists' understanding of the crucial connections between cellular metabolism and gene regulation in the endocrine control of reproduction, inflammation, differentiation and cancer. Kraus is Professor and Director of the Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

   

• Antonio Moschetta, MD, PhD - Richard E. Weitzman Memorial Award. This annual award recognizes an exceptionally promising young clinical or basic investigator. Moschetta has emerged as a leading contributor to understanding of the diverse endocrine functions of nuclear receptors in gastrointestinal systems. His published research addresses an impressive number of different aspects of normal and pathological gastrointestinal biology, ranging from colon cancer and cholestasis to enterocyte differentiation and bile acid homeostasis. Moschetta is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Bari in Bari, Italy and heads the IRCCS "Giovanni Paolo II" Scientific Institute in Bari, Italy.

   

For the 2015 Laureate Awards, The Endocrine Society has launched four new award categories, including the Outstanding Innovation Award, the Outstanding Mentor Award, the Outstanding Public Service Award, and the Gerald D. Aurbach Award for Translational Research. To nominate and learn more about the changes and improvements to the Laureate Awards, visit http://www.endocrine.org/laureate. Nominations for the 2015 Laureate Awards are due by Jan. 3, 2014 at midnight (Eastern Time).