Nov 30, 2005 -- Michael Brownlee, MD, the Anita and Jack Saltz Professor of Diabetes Research and director of the JDRF International Center for Diabetic Complications Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, recently received the 2005 Naomi Berrie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Diabetes Research from Columbia University Medical Center. The honor recognizes Dr. Brownlee’s work describing the biological processes responsible for glucose-mediated vascular damage. “Michael Brownlee is a true pioneer and visionary in the field of diabetes research,” said Dr. Rudolph Leibel, professor of pediatrics and medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and research director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center. “His proposal of a single metabolic process behind diabetes-related vascular damage has had an important impact on the way we look at the disease, from both a research and a treatment perspective.” Dr. Brownlee is one of only four diabetes researchers in the world to receive both the highest research award given by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and the two top research awards given by the American Diabetes Association. Among his other honors are the 2005 Outstanding Foreign Investigator Award from the Japan Diabetes Society and the 2004 Davis Award from the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes. His work has been featured in a number of prestigious peer-reviewed publications, including Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Medicine, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. “Columbia University and the Berrie Foundation are at the forefront of diabetes research and treatment, and it’s an honor to have my research recognized and supported with this award,” said Dr. Brownlee. Diabetes is the leading cause of new blindness and kidney failure in the United States, and a major cause of heart attacks and strokes. High blood sugar is widely acknowledged as the cause of these diabetic complications, but understanding how high blood sugar does its damage has not been simple. Over the past three decades, researchers have implicated four primary molecular mechanisms in the development of glucose-mediated vascular damage. For years, these processes were studied as independent entities, with no apparent common element linking them. Dr. Brownlee’s research has suggested that the four mechanisms in question actually reflect a single hyperglycemia-induced process, thus creating a new model for the pathogenesis of diabetes complications. Dr. Brownlee has been academically affiliated with Duke University School of Medicine, Stanford University, Harvard University, and Philadelphia’s Swarthmore College. He began his professional career at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-affiliated Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in the late 1970s, and later rose through the ranks at Rockefeller University to become Associate Professor of Medical Biochemistry and a senior scientist and physician at the University’s clinical research center and hospital. He has been with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in his current capacities since 1988. The Russell Berrie Foundation established the Naomi Berrie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Diabetes Research in 2000. The award was designed to foster the highest quality in diabetes research by rewarding and encouraging outstanding achievement in the field, while simultaneously helping to promote important scientific collaborations across institutions and furthering the careers of especially promising young diabetes investigators. Each year, the recipient—a senior scientist who has made major and universally recognized contributions to diabetes research—is granted $100,000 to support a two-year research fellowship for a student or research fellow in his or her laboratory. Notable recipients of past Naomi Berrie Awards include Graeme Bell, Ph.D. of the University of Chicago (2000), C. Ronald Kahn M.D. of the Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School, (2001), Clifton Bogardus III, M.D. of the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases (2002), George S. Eisenbarth, M.D., Ph.D. of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (2003), and Douglas Melton, Ph.D. of Harvard University (2004).