Stanford Diabetes Research Center awarded $7.7 million

The School of Medicine has been awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund the Stanford Diabetes Research Center.

The five-year, $7.7 million grant will be used to provide support for the research, training and clinical activities of the center’s 90 members, which include faculty from the schools of Medicine, of Engineering and of Arts and Sciences.

With the grant, the center joins 16 other federally supported diabetes research centers nationwide.

The center’s mission is to foster innovation, new knowledge and training in basic and translational diabetes-related research, leading to improved diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diabetes and its complications, said Seung Kim, MD, PhD, professor of developmental biology and director of the center, which was established last year.

“We view this as important recognition of the outstanding and enduring fundamental and clinical investigations at Stanford that focus on understanding and treating diabetes,” Kim said. “Unfortunately, diabetes incidence in its major forms is increasing worldwide. So this support is timely.” 

Examples of ongoing research supported by the center include several projects to build an artificial pancreas, build an atlas of human pancreas cells, research the genetic basis of insulin resistance, and improve care and prevent complications in patients with Type 1 diabetes.

“Our members are united by a common interest in understanding, treating and curing diabetes, including Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and forms of diabetes linked to pancreatic cancer,” Kim said.