Domenico Accili
Dr. Accili serves as the Russell Berrie Foundation Professor of Diabetes, Chief of the Endocrinology Division, and Director of the Diabetes Research Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, and as an attending physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Highly regarded for transformative findings that have advanced our understanding of the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes, Dr. Accili has contributed to more than 230 publications.
Dr. Accili’s research has delved into the integrated physiology of insulin action, and mechanisms of pancreatic beta cell failure. He is best known for his work to elucidate mechanisms of hepatic glucose production, enteroendocrine cell differentiation, and beta cell dedifferentiation. Perhaps his most important contributions to date have been in the area of pancreatic beta cell biology, and specifically in the demonstration that beta cell failure, long held to be a consequence of cell death, can result from a dedifferentiation process, whereby beta cells lose the ability to make insulin, revert to a progenitor stage, and convert to other hormone-producing cells. Germane to this discovery is the observation that enteroendocrine cells have the potential to give rise to functional insulin-producing cells in the gut–a property that is being investigated as a therapeutic opportunity for type 1 diabetes.
Dr. Accili’s body of work reflects significant, paradigm-shifting discoveries that hold promise for translating to novel approaches for diabetes prevention and care. He has received numerous awards, including the Banting Medal and the Lilly Award from the American Diabetes Association, the Claude Bernard Medal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, the University of Chicago’s Steiner Award, and the Endocrine Society’s Astwood Award. He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. A member of several editorial boards and advisory panels for academia, government, and industry, his work is supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Russell Berrie Foundation.
Abstracts this author is presenting: