Richard E. Pratley, MD, is currently Professor of Medicine and Director of the Diabetes and Metabolism Translational Medicine Unit at the University of Vermont College of Medicine in Burlington, Vermont. He is a graduate of Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan, and trained in internal medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He did further training in geriatrics and gerontology at the University of Michigan; Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Maryland. He subsequently served as Head of the Diabetes and Metabolism Unit of the NIH Clinical Diabetes and Nutrition Section in Phoenix, Arizona, before taking a position as Senior Director in the Cardiovascular and Metabolism Therapeutic Area at Novartis Pharmaceuticals where he worked on the clinical development of new drugs for diabetes until 2004.

Dr Pratley’s extensive research experience in the areas of diabetes and metabolism includes the effects of exercise and weight loss on energy metabolism and insulin sensitivity and the relationship between insulin resistance and obesity. While at the NIH, he performed important research that elucidated the nature of and mechanisms underlying diabetes and obesity in the Pima Indians. Dr Pratley has led many large-scale investigations, including NIH and pharma sponsored studies, and was a recipient of the Henry Christian Award for Excellence in Clinical Research from the American Federation for Clinical Research Foundation. His current research interests include developing new drugs to treat and prevent diabetes and its complications and understanding the role of the fat cell in increasing the risk for diabetes and heart disease.

Dr Pratley has published and lectured extensively, has written numerous chapters on the etiology and management of type 2 diabetes, and serves as a member of the editorial boards of Current Diabetes Reports and Diabetes Care and as an ad hoc reviewer for many professional journals.