As the recipient of this prestigious award, Prof Gloyn delivered the 49th Minkowski lecture at the 50th EASD Annual Meeting in Vienna on Thursday 18th September 2014. The title of her lecture was ‘Unravelling causal mechanisms in diabetes pathogenesis’. Her lecture can be viewed on the ESAD website.
The consistent focus of Anna’s work has been the study of naturally occurring mutations that cause or are associated with increased risk of diabetes. Although a basic scientist, her work is highly translational. Anna’s work describing a novel genetic cause of neonatal diabetes revolutionised how patients with this condition are treated, whilst her recent work on biomarkers for HNF1A-MODY has provided a cost effective way of prioritising patients for genetic testing. Anna has also used human genetics to demonstrate the interplay between pathways involved in cell growth and metabolism. Most recently, she has led on international efforts to elucidate the molecular mechanisms for genetic variants associated with type 2 diabetes risk and influencing metabolic traits.