The prestigious endocrine researchers and clinicians honored with our 2024 Laureate Awards represent the best and brightest in our field.
Our Laureate Award winners also demonstrate the way endocrinology and the Endocrine Society transcend borders. The honorees hail from six countries and four continents. We are proud to recognize outstanding researchers and clinicians in Argentina, Brazil, France, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The winners are committed to caring for diverse populations. Vigersky Outstanding Clinical Practitioner Award winner Sandra Daniela Licht, MD, travels to rural Patagonia in Argentina to treat individuals who would otherwise have limited access to care. Outstanding Educator Award winner A. Enrique Caballero, MD — a member of our Committee on Diversity and Inclusion — established programs to provide diabetes care to the Latino community at Joslin Diabetes Center and Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
Our Laureate Award winners also include individuals who are working to expand and diversify our endocrine workforce. Past President E. Dale Abel, MBBS, MD, PhD, is the deserving recipient of our Fred Conrad Koch Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his seminal work researching heart complications of obesity and insulin resistance, Abel has mentored professionals at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Iowa, and has spearheaded our Future Leaders Advancing Research in Endocrinology (FLARE) program. For more than a decade, FLARE has nurtured the research career aspirations of individuals from underrepresented minorities.
In fact, as an example of the success of the FLARE program, one of the first FLARE fellows, Joshua J. Joseph, MD, MPH, of the Ohio State University College of Medicine, is the recipient of the Richard E. Weitzman Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award. Joseph is seeking to identify obesity and type 2 diabetes risk factors in diverse populations and opportunities for prevention.
Outstanding Mentor Award winner Sanjay Bhadada, MD, DM, has helped guide and shape the careers of dozens of young professionals in his role as professor of endocrinology and head of the Endocrinology Department at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India. His mentees have gone on to become leaders and heads of departments in medical schools in India as well as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, United States, and Europe.
The 2024 Laureate Award winners also are breaking new ground in the research world. Morris Brown, MD, has made amazing contributions toward our understanding of underrecognized adrenal causes of hypertension. His pioneering translational work is being acknowledged with the Gerald D. Aurbach Award for Outstanding Translational Research.
We are proud to honor Vincent Prevot, PhD, with the Edwin B. Astwood Award for Outstanding Research in Basic Science. As the Research Director and Laboratory Head of Development and Plasticity of the Neuroendocrine Brain at Lille Neuroscience & Cognition, Inserm in Lille, France, Prevot’s research into the neuronal and glial plasticity in the GnRH system has advanced our understanding of the onset of puberty and adult fertility.
Our winners are leading the way in translating lab discoveries into public health innovations. Outstanding Leadership in Endocrinology Award winner Anne Klibanski, MD, is overseeing growing investment in leading-edge research that has the potential to revolutionize treatments, such as gene and cell therapy. She is president and chief executive officer of Mass General Brigham and chief of the Neuroendocrine Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. The system’s innovation team has created more than 300 companies that are making broad impacts on human health.
Outstanding Innovation Award winner David Katz, PhD, is the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., in Portland, Ore. Katz and his team developed a novel therapy, the HSD-1 inhibitor SPI-62. The prospect of a long-awaited new treatment option for Cushing’s syndrome is thrilling.
Our honorees are developing better solutions to the obesity epidemic. Outstanding Clinical Investigator Award winner Sadaf Farooqi, MD, PhD, of the University of Cambridge, discovered the first genes whose disruption causes severe obesity and established that the failure of central control of appetite is the principal driver of obesity. Evan D. Rosen, MD, PhD, winner of the Roy O. Greep Award for Outstanding Research, is researching the transcriptional pathways that underlie metabolic disease. His lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass., created many mouse models that are widely used to study adipose tissue.
Rounding out the 2024 Laureate honorees are dedicated Society volunteers Past-President Lynnette Nieman, MD, Dolores Shoback, MD (my fellowship program director and amazing mentor at UCSF!), and Cesar Boguszewski, MD, PhD. All three have served on our Board of Directors and numerous committees. Their commitment has helped shape the Endocrine Society into a warm and welcoming community for all endocrine professionals.
If you would like to see a colleague’s achievements recognized, be sure to nominate them for a 2025 Laureate Award. We are already accepting nominations on our website.
As you cross paths with our Laureate winners, be sure to congratulate them. I can’t wait to honor this impressive group when we meet in Boston, Mass., for ENDO 2024.
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