To mark November as Diabetes Awareness Month, the Stanford Diabetes Research Center (SDRC) organizes a Diabetes Research Forum each year. The fourth iteration of this series was held on Nov 22nd, 2019 at the Berg Hall in Li Ka Shing Center. The Diabetes Research Forum is a day-long symposium with presentations from Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) award winners. 90 members from within the center, including faculty members, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows attended this year. Keynote was delivered by Dr. Andreas Stahl, Professor of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology at University of California, Berkeley. He talked about the role of thermogenesis and brown fat metabolism in controlling obesity and discussed strategies to engineer brown fat within hydrogen matrices.
Dr. Rick Kraemer, Director of the SDRC Pilot and Feasibilty Program, showcased the success of the program over the last 4 years. It was exciting to see the breadth of projects that have been funded since the center has received NIH funding. Dr. Kraemer highlighted publications and grants that have benefited from pilot funding from SDRC. He also thanked the support of partnering departments and institutes at Stanford that have co-funded pilot awards. The 2019 P&F awardees presented updates on their progress so far and received valuable feedback from members of the diabetes research community. 7 new pilot awards have been granted in 2019 and the awardees presented their proposed work that will begin in January 2020. Dr. Seung Kim, Director of SDRC, provided updates on the activities of the center and thanked all members for active participation.
