Garvan keeps prize to itself

The Garvan Institute’s Dr Alex Viardot has been awarded the inaugural GlaxoSmithKline Don Chisholm Diabetes Research Fellowship.

The fellowship, worth $90,000 a year for two years, is aimed at assisting research into type 2 diabetes and is named in honour of renowned endocrinologist and diabetes researcher Professor Don Chisholm.

Chisholm was the founder of the diabetes centre at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney in 1980 and a senior principal research fellow at the Garvan’s diabetes and obesity research program. He specialises in insulin resistance and its relationship to abdominal fat.

Viardot has been working as a postgraduate research fellow with the Garvan’s diabetes program since 2004. Originally from Germany, he is investigating immune system activation in pre-diabetes and in type 2 diabetes, focusing on hormonal modulation of the immune function by insulin.

He is also investigating novel predictors of type 2 diabetes in people with a family history.

GSK’s medical advisor, Dr Eugene Goh, said the idea behind the fellowship was not only to contribute to basic research into the diabetes epidemic, but also to honour Chisholm and recognise his contribution to diabetes from both a clinical and research perspective.