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Lifetime Achievement Award
2011 RECIPIENT: Dr. George Steiner
AWARD: The Clinical and Scientific Section (C&SS) of the Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) established the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 for the purpose of recognizing Canadian achievement for a lifetime commitment to research excellence. The award is bestowed upon a prominent Canadian MD or PhD medical scientist who is recognized and nominated by his/her peers for long-standing contribution to the Canadian diabetes community and a leader in diabetes research.
Dr. Steiner graduated from the University of British Columbia and pursued his subsequent training at the Royal Victoria Hospital of McGill University and at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Joslin Clinic of Harvard University. Thereafter he joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, where he currently holds the rank of Professor Emeritus of Medicine and where he served as Head of Endocrinology at the Toronto General Hospital and he headed the WHO Collaborating Centre for the Study of Atherosclerosis in Diabetes.
Dr. Steiner’s connection to diabetes began in 1942, when his father was diagnosed with diabetes. Since then, he has directed himself toward medicine with the ultimate goal being to study and care for people with this disorder. His research has focused particularly on its major complication, arteriosclerosis, centering primarily on lipoprotein metabolism in diabetes and in insulin resistance. His questions arose at the bedside and carried him from cellular metabolism, through animal studies to studies in humans and to clinical trials. He directed the Toronto General Hospital site in the Lipid Research Clinic Coronary Primary Prevention Trial, the first clinical trial demonstrating that cholesterol reduction reduces the risk of coronary artery disease. Subsequently, his was the initiative to undertake and lead the Diabetes Atherosclerosis Intervention Study. That multinational study was conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organization and was the first study that was specifically designed to examine whether correcting the lipid abnormalities in type 2 diabetes would reduce the progression of coronary artery disease. Using coronary angiography, it demonstrated that correcting lipoprotein abnormalities in diabetes reduced the progression of coronary disease. His work has resulted in the publication of more than 200 papers, chapters and books. It has been nationally and internationally recognized by being named, to cite a few, as the Banting and Best Lecturer of the International Diabetes Federation, the Mehlati Lecturer of Helsinki University Medical School, the Louise Buerki Visiting Professorship of the Henry Ford Hospital and the MDS Health Group Lecturer of the Canadian Clinical Chemistry Society, a Distinguished Fellow of the International Atherosclerosis Society and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He has served on numerous editorial boards and grant review panels. His laboratory has had trainees from Canada and numerous countries around the world and they have held leading academic positions here, in Japan, Finland, Italy, Israel and Australia.
Throughout his academic career, Dr. Steiner has never lost sight of the people with diabetes. He was one of three who formed the Tri-Hospital Diabetes Education Centre, one of Canada’s first ambulatory centres devoted to teaching those with diabetes about the nature of and care for diabetes. This has subsequently also become a centre in which medical and paramedical individuals learn how to work with people with diabetes. At the request of the American Diabetes Association, he and Patricia Lawrence wrote the textbook, “Educating the Diabetic Patient”.
Previous recipients:
2008 John Dupré MD BSc BM BCH FRCP FRCPC FACP
2007 Mladen Vranic