Ralph A. DeFronzo, MD

Professor of Medicine
Chief, Diabetes Division
University of Texas Health Science Center
Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Affairs Hospital
Deputy Director, Texas Diabetes Institute
San Antonio, Texas

Ralph A. DeFronzo, MD, is a professor of medicine and chief of the Diabetes Division at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Affairs Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. He also functions as the deputy director of the Texas Diabetes Institute. Dr. DeFronzo is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and did his training in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Later, he completed fellowships in endocrinology at the National Institutes of Health and Baltimore City Hospitals and in nephrology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. DeFronzo’s major interests focus on the pathogenesis and treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus, the central role of insulin resistance in the metabolic-cardiovascular cluster of disorders, known collectively as the insulin resistance syndrome, and the etiology and treatment of diabetic nephropathy. Using the euglycemic insulin clamp technique in combination with radioisotope turnover methodology, limb catheterization, indirect calorimetry, and muscle biopsy, he has helped to define the biochemical and molecular disturbances responsible for insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes mellitus.

For his work in this area, Dr. DeFronzo received the prestigious Lilly Award by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the Banting Lectureship by the Canadian Diabetes Association, the Novartis Award for outstanding clinical investigation worldwide and many other national and international awards. He also is the recipient of the ADA’s Albert Renold Award for lifetime commitment to the training of young diabetes investigators. Previously, he served on the ADA’s Board of Directors and as chairman of the ADA’s Medical and Scientific Oversight Committee, Research Policy Committee, Research Review Committee, and Professional Education Committee. He is a member of the ADA Expert Committee on the Classification and Diagnosis of Diabetes Mellitus. He was the United States representative for the International Study Group for Type 2 Diabetes for 14 years and is a member of several medical societies including the American Diabetes Association, the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), and the American Society of Clinical Investigation.

He is the past-editor of Diabetes Reviews, a coeditor of the ADA’s Physicians Guide to Type 1 Diabetes and the ADA’s Physicians Guide to Type 2 Diabetes, coeditor of the International Textbook of Diabetes, a past member of the editorial boards of Diabetologia and the American Journal of Physiology, and a current member of the editorial board of the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications and the Journal of Obesity, Weight Regulation, Diabetes, and Metabolism. With more than 430 articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals, Dr. DeFronzo is a distinguished clinician, teacher, and investigator who has been an invited speaker at major national and international conferences on diabetes mellitus.

Over the last 29 years, Dr. DeFronzo has trained over 70 diabetes/endocrinology/nephrology fellows and eleven currently are chiefs of major diabetes/endocrinology/nephrology/medicine divisions in the United States and Europe. Among these trainees are two Lilly Award Recipients (Young Investigator Award, ADA) and two Minkowski Award Recipients (Outstanding Research Award, EASD). Dr. DeFronzo has been in receipt of the Mentor-Based Fellowship Award from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) since 1989.