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Claude Bernard Prize

The Claude Bernard Prize recognises an individual's innovative leadership and lifetime achievements in diabetes research.

To be eligible for nomination:

  • Candidates must be an EASD member
  • Candidates can be from any country
  • There are no age restrictions

The awardee will receive a monetary prize generously sponsored by Sanofi and will deliver a Lecture during the EASD Annual Meeting in the year of the award describing the awardee’s most important scientific achievements.


Learn more about the last Claude Bernard Prize awardee in 2023:

Åke Lernmark, Sweden

Lecture: Dissecting etiologies of autoimmune type 1 diabetes

Watch Award Lecture

Watch EASD TV Interview

Watch EASD TV Portrait

Claude Bernard Awardees:

2023 Hamburg
Å. Lernmark (SE): Dissecting etiologies of autoimmune type 1 diabetes

2022 Stockholm
M.A. Nauck (DE): An updated incretin concept for tomorrow

2021 Virtual Meeting
J.R. Zierath (SE): Sending the right signals: How exercise keeps the rhythm in metabolism

2020 Virtual Meeting
T. Kadowaki (JP): What is type 2 diabetes? A long journey to seek the truth

2019 Barcelona
S.E. Kahn (US): Unravelling beta cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetes: from the unpredicted to the unknown

2018 Berlin
J. Tuomilehto (KW): Prevention of type 2 diabetes: a dream that came true

2017 Lisbon
B. Thorens (CH): A glucose-centric view on diabetes pathogenesis: from islet biology to integrated physiology and precision medicine

2016 Munich
M.E. Cooper (AU): Uncomplicating diabetes: interactions between metabolic and haemodynamic signalling pathways in the pathogenesis of diabetic complications

2015 Stockholm
H.-U. Häring (DE): Understanding phenotypes of prediabetes: essential to influencing progression to type 2 diabetes

2014 Vienna
D. Accili (US): The new biology of diabetes

2013 Barcelona
M. Laakso (FI): From one family to 10,000 men: genes meet phenotypes in diabetes

2012 Berlin
D. Drucker (CA): Understanding incretin hormone action and the treatment of diabetes

2011 Lisbon
E. Ferrannini (IT): Diabetes: brief history of a conspiracy

2010 Stockholm
M. Kasuga (JP): Unravelling the insulin signalling network to understand and treat diabetes

2009 Vienna
O. Pedersen (DK): From cost-effective whole-patient diabetes care to diminish vascular morbidity and mortality - towards the potentials of biomarker-promoted metabolic health

2008 Rome
R.A. deFronzo (US): Insulin resistance, lipotoxicity, and ASCVD: the missing link

2007 Amsterdam
E. Van Obberghen (FR): Diabetes and its complications: insulin action in trouble

2006 Copenhagen
L. Groop (SE): The genetic complexity of type 2 diabetes - from nightmare to sunrise

2005 Athens
J.J. Holst (DK): Treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus based on incretin action: status and perspectives

2004 Munich
C.R. Kahn (US): The brain and tissue communication in the pathogenesis of diabetes: Claude Bernard revisited

2003 Paris
M. Brownlee (US): Biochemistry and molecular cell biology of diabetic complications

2002 Budapest
M.-R. Taskinen (FI): Diabetic dyslipidaemia: From research to practice

2001 Glasgow
P.E. Cryer (US): Hypoglycaemia: The limiting factor in the management of type 1 and type 2 diabetes

2000 Jerusalem
W. Malaisse (BE): On the track to the beta cell

1999 Brussels
J.-P. Assal (CH): From bio-medicine to patient needs: Which cybernetic challenges in diabetes therapy? Some unanswered questions

1998 Barcelona
C. Wollheim (CH): Mitochondria and and beta-cell function: A new culprit in type 2 diabetes

1997 Helsinki
C.E. Morgensen (DK): Microalbuminuria and diabetic renal disease. Origin and development of ideas

1996 Vienna
J.D. Ward (UK): The tragedy and challenge of diabetic neuropathy

1995 Stockholm
M. Berger (DE): To bridge science and patient care in diabetes

1994 Düsseldorf
G. Reaven (US): The fourth Musketeer - from Alexandre Dumas to Claude Bernard

1993 Istanbul
D. Andreani (IT): The labyrinth of diabetic vascular disease: Crossroads and ways out

1992 Prague
P.H. Bennett(US): Epidemiology, pathogenesis and genetics of NIDDM: From Claude Bernard to the Pima Indians

1991 Dublin
E. Shafrir (IL): Understanding of diabetes through studies of its aetiopathology in animals

1990 Copenhagen
K.G. Alberti (UK): Insulin resistance: mechanisms, measurement and meaning

1989 Lisbon
G. Tchobroutsky (FR): Blood sugar levels in diabetics and non-diabetics

1988 Paris
T. Deckert (DK): Albuminuria reflects widespread vascular damage

1987 Leipzig
H. Keen (UK): The bad companions

1986 Rome
W.K. Waldhäusl (AT): The physiological basis of insulin treatment: Clinical aspects

1985 Madrid
E.F. Pfeiffer (DE): On the way to automated control of blood sugar in diabetes: The dark past, the grey present and the rosy future

1984 London
P.J. Lefébvre (BE): From plant physiology to human metabolic investigations

1983 Oslo
C. Hellerström (SE): The life story of a beta cell

1982 Budapest
J. Mirouze (FR): Insulin treatment: A non-stop revolution

1981 Amsterdam
G.R. Meyer-Schwickerath (DE): Doseology of photocoagulation in diabetic retinopathy

1980 Athens
R.H. Unger (US): The milieu interieur and the islets of Langerhans

1979 Vienna
D.A. Pyke (UK): Diabetes: The genetic connections

1978 Zagreb
W. Creutzfeldt (DE): The incretin concept today (with special reference to GIP)

1977 Geneva
D.L. Coleman (US): Diabetes syndromes in mice

1976 Helsinki
H.G. Hers (BE): The homeostatic and hormonal control of the level of glycaemia by the liver

1975 Munich
R.G. Spiro (US): Search for a biochemical basis of diabetic microangiopathy

1974 Jerusalem
T.R. Fraser (UK): Insulin's calcium releasing action

1973 Brussels
A.E. Renold (CH): Experimental and spontaneous diabetic syndromes in animals (a re-evaluation of their usefulness for approaching the physio-pathology of diabetes in man)

1972 Madrid
K. Lundbaek (DK): Diabetic angiopathy

1971 Southampton
M. Dérot (FR): Progrès dans l'investigation et le traitement des acidocétoses diabétiques sévères

1970 Warsaw
E.W. Sutherland (US): The regulatory role of cyclic AMP

1969 Montpellier
C. de Duve (BE): Lysosomes, cellular pathology and diabetes