Honolulu associate member Mariana Gerschenson has secured $11.3 million in National Institute of Health funding for an additional five years of diabetes research in Hawai‘i, where nearly one in two people have the disease or live with pre-diabetes. Dr. Gerschenson is associate dean for research at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoaʻs John A. Burns School of Medicine and director of its Diabetes Research Center.
Created under NIHʻs Centers for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program, the UH center has trained young investigators while studying cell and animal models to understand how diabetes and pre-diabetes develops and why it disproprotionately affects Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations. Phase Two funding will allow researchers to look at how diabetes can trigger stroke and heart disease and impact the kidneys.
"Living in Hawaiʻi, many of us have diabetes or know someone who has it, so it is our obligation as researchers in Hawaiʻi to investigate problems that affect the people of this state," says Dr. Gerschenson, a professor of cell and molecular biology. She is pictured above with JABSOM Dean Sam Shomaker and Center for Diabetes Research Deputy Director Marjorie Mau, a professor in the Department of Native Hawaiian Health.
