Ralph Anthony DeFronzo, MD

Professor of Medicine
Chief of the Diabetes Division
University of Texas Health Science Center
Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital
San Antonio, Texas

Ralph A. DeFronzo, MD, is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Diabetes Division at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. DeFronzo is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and did his training in Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. 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. Subsequently, he joined the faculty at the Yale University School of Medicine (1975-88) as an Assistant/Associate Professor.

His major interests focus on the pathogenesis and treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus and the central role of insulin resistance in the metabolic-cardiovascular cluster of disorders known collectively as the Insulin Resistance Syndrome. Using the euglycemic insulin clamp technique in combination with radioisotope turnover methodology, limb catheterization, indirect calorimetry, and muscle biopsy, Dr. DeFronzo 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 (1987) by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the Banting Lectureship (1988) by the Canadian Diabetes Association, the Novartis Award (2003) for outstanding clinical investigation world wide and many other national and international awards. He also is the recipient of the ADA’s Albert Renold Award (2002) for lifetime commitment to the training of young diabetes investigators, the Italian Diabetes Society Mentor Award (2008), the ADA’s Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement (2008), the EADS’s Claude Bernard Lecture (2008), and the Philip Bandy Lecture (2008). With more than 500 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.

Ralph A. DeFronzo, MD, has received grants/research support from Amylin, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, and Takeda.