Fran Ashcroft Awarded Manpei Suzuki International Prize for Diabetes Research

Professorial Fellow Dame Frances Ashcroft has been awarded the Manpei Suzuki International Prize for Diabetes Research.

The Prize recognises original and excellent achievements in diabetes research; Professor Ashcroft is the first woman to be awarded the prize, which she will receive in March.  The Selection Committee cited her pioneering and groundbreaking contributions over her career to disclosing mechanistic functions of the KATP channel in glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and to identifying neonatal diabetes caused by KATP gene mutations, which transformed both our understanding of mechanisms of insulin secretion and the lives of patients with a severe form of diabetes.

Professor Ashcroft is a globally renowned physiologist whose research has significantly advanced our understanding of insulin secretion from pancreatic beta-cells in both health and disease. She discovered a key step in the process by which an increase in the blood sugar level after a meal leads to secretion of the hormone insulin. Her work on neonatal diabetes enabled children born with this rare genetic form of diabetes to switch from insulin injections to tablet therapy. Most recently, her research has revealed the mechanism by which high blood glucose reprograms the metabolism of pancreatic beta-cells in diabetes. She will be giving a talk on her work on 25 January: The Spark of Life is part of Trinity's public events programme Trinity Talks.