Ravi Retnakaran
MD, FRCPC
Dr. Retnakaran is an associate professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Toronto and clinician-scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. He is a former Robert Turner Visiting Scholar in Diabetes Research at Oxford University, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) New Investigator, and Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) Clinician-Scientist. He was awarded the 2013 Dr. Charles Hollenberg Young Investigator Award by the Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism. He has served as a grant reviewer for CIHR, CDA and NIH, and on the editorial board of Diabetes Care.
His research program focuses on the pathophysiology and treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2DM), with a particular interest in the potential reversibility of pancreatic beta-cell dysfunction (the central defect in T2DM). In this context, his research group is conducting a series of clinical trials evaluating therapeutic strategies for the preservation of beta-cell function early in the course T2DM. He is the lead investigator on 3 current CIHR-funded studies including (i) a longstanding prospective observational cohort study of women and their children in Toronto, (ii) an analogous cohort study of mother and child in China, and (iii) a multi-centre randomized controlled trial of a novel strategy for preserving beta-cell function by treating T2DM with intermittent insulin therapy.