Revisit 2013 Schedule - Pritzker School of Medicine - University of ...

BIGIDEAS INMEDICINEAPRIL 12, 2:00-3:30PM, BSLC 115Faculty at the University of Chicago areinternationally recognized for combining scientificand medical research with patient care. On Fridayafternoon at Revisit, we will introduce you to fiveof our distinguished faculty and their innovativeresearch. These lectures, titled “Big Ideas inMedicine”, will give you just a taste of the researchand scholarship opportunities available to you at thePritzker School of Medicine.Kenneth S. Polonsky, MDRichard T. Crane Distinguished Service ProfessorDean of the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of MedicineExecutive Vice President for Medical AffairsThe University of ChicagoA prominent diabetes researcher, physician, and educator, Dr. Polonsky has served as Dean of theBiological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine and Executive Vice President forMedical Affairs at the University of Chicago since October 2010.In his role as dean, Dr. Polonsky oversees the University’s research and education programs in the biological sciences andmedicine. As executive vice president, he reports directly to the University president and serves as an officer of the University,overseeing the University of Chicago Medicine.As a scientist, Dr. Polonsky studies factors that influence the health and function of pancreatic beta cells, which produce andsecrete insulin. Defects in insulin production and action are hallmarks of noninsulin dependent (type 2) diabetes. Dr. Polonskywas part of a team at the University of Chicago in the 1980s that developed and tested ways to measure insulin-secretion rates.His more recent studies have focused on novel, sensitive, and accurate methods of evaluating beta-cell function in people withmild diabetes or who have not yet developed diabetes, and on forms of diabetes that result from genetic causes. He currently isstudying genes that increase the risk for type 2 diabetes and is evaluating drugs that stimulate insulin secretion—a project thathe began with colleagues at the University of Chicago.Dr. Polonsky has been a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences since 2006, one of thehighest honors medical scientists in the United States can receive. Dr. Polonsky has won multiple awards, including the YoungInvestigator Award from the American Federation of Clinical Research in 1993, the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Awardof the American Diabetes Association in 1994, and a highly selective National Institutes of Health MERIT Award in 1997. In 2007,he was named director of the five-year, $50-million NIH-funded Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences at WashingtonUniversity. In 2009 he was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.He has published more than 250 papers, and he has served on the editorial boards of several journals and on national andregional committees of a number of organizations including the American Diabetes Association and Juvenile Diabetes ResearchFoundation. He was a member of the board of directors of the American Board of Internal Medicine.