Professor Paul Zimmet

Professor Paul Zimmet is Professor of Diabetes, Monash University and Director Emeritus, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, and Honorary President of the International Diabetes Federation. He has an outstanding international record in diabetes and obesity research, particularly in epidemiology and public health, research that predicted then charted the evolving global type 2 diabetes epidemic. His genetic studies with Professor Greg Collier, at Deakin University and epigenetic research at Baker IDI Monash with Professor Assam El Osta have led to important understanding of mechanisms in diabetes and obesity. He co-led the  Monash team to develop the first laboratory anti-GAD test for predicting type 1 diabetes, now used throughout the world. He has published over 890 papers and listed in both the 2015 and 2016 Thomson Reuter’s “Worlds-Most-Influential-Scientific-Minds”.

His many international and national awards include the Kelly West and Harold Rifkin Medals (American Diabetes Association), the Kellion Award (the highest scientific recognition of the Australian Diabetes Society), Banting Award (Diabetes UK) and the Professor A.M. Cohen Memorial Award and Lecture, EASD in Jerusalem in 2000. In 2010, he received the Grand Hamdan International Prize for Medical Sciences and, in 2013, he was awarded the Peter Wills Medal from Research Australia recognising an Australian who has made an outstanding contribution to building Australia’s international reputation in the area of health and medical research. In 2015, he gave the Howard Florey Memorial Oration at the University of Adelaide and in 2016, he gave the Jeffery Cheah Distinguished Speaker Lecture at Malaysia’s Sunway University. He is Co-Director with Professor Naftali Stern at the newly established Sagol Center for Epigenetics of Metabolism and Aging at the Tel Aviv Medical Center in Tel Aviv.

He is an International Member of the Spanish Royal National Academy of Medicine and holds Honorary Doctorates from Madrid’s Complutense University, Monash University, Tel Aviv University and the University of Adelaide. He is an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished services to medicine, nutrition and the biotechnology industry.  He was Co-Chair of the Australian Government’s National Diabetes Strategy Advisory Committee for the development of the 2016-2020 Strategy.