Michael Rickels is a Professor of Medicine and Director for Clinical Science in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA. He first graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine where he completed his residency training in internal medicine and postdoctoral fellowship training in endocrinology and currently works as the Willard and Rhoda Ware Professor in Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases. He specialises in diagnosis and treatment of diabetes, hypoglycaemia disorders and general endocrinologic problems. His clinical interests include pancreas and islet allotransplantation as therapies for type 1 diabetes, and islet autotransplantation for patients undergoing pancreatectomy.
His research areas of expertise include the pathogenesis of various forms of diabetes, the in vivo mechanisms of new diabetes treatments, and islet function and replacement in type 1 diabetes and pancreatogenic forms of diabetes. He has authored over 160 papers in his career and conducts patient-oriented diabetes research, often using studies that involve methodologies for quantifying insulin and incretin secretion, insulin sensitivity and glucose counterregulatory responses to hypoglycaemia. Presently, his work in type 1 diabetes is focused on novel approaches to the prevention or correction of hypoglycaemia, including by closed-loop technology and islet replacement approaches for patients with difficult to control type 1 and pancreatogenic diabetes.
Professor Rickels’ work has been continuously funded by the USA’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he has served on the Clinical and Integrative Diabetes and Obesity Study Section and on the Restore Insulin Secretion Data and Safety Monitoring Board and chaired the metabolics study subcommittee for the Clinical Islet Transplantation Consortium and has chaired the publications and presentations committee for the Collaborative Islet Transplant Registry. Professor Rickels recently served as an elected councilor for the International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Association and on the Planning Committee for the American Diabetes Association (ADA), where he was responsible for developing programme content for islet biology and insulin secretion. He is currently the Medical Director of the Pancreatic Islet Cell Transplant Program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Translational Research Program for the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
Duality of Interest: None declared
Date: Autumn 2022