Editorial introductions

Abstract

Current Opinion in Endocrinology and Diabetes was launched in 1994, with Obesity added to the title in 2007. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The fields of endocrinology and diabetes are divided into 12 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce one of the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS David M. HarlanDavid M. HarlanDr David M. Harlan is a graduate of the University of Michigan (Bachelor of Science) and the Duke University School of Medicine, USA. He completed his internal medicine internship and residency at the Duke University Medical Center. This was before serving for 4 years as a staff internist at the Navy Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA. He then returned to Duke for his fellowship training in diabetes, endocrinology, and metabolism. In 1991 he established his laboratory at the Navy Medical Research Institute, USA, where he rose to become the Director of Combat Casualty Care. He was then appointed to the faculty of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. In 1999, he moved his laboratory to the National Institutes of Health, where he became the Diabetes Branch Chief within the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases. In 2010, he moved to the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine, USA, where he is the William and Doris Krupp Professor of Medicine. Dr Harlan co-directs the university's Diabetes Center of Excellence. His research interests all relate to diabetes and include the immunopathogenesis underlying type 1 diabetes and improved care delivery models, including transplant-based approaches, for the disease. Annabelle RodriguezAnnabelle RodriguezDr Rodriguez is the Linda and David Roth Chair of Cardiovascular Research at the University of Connecticut Health Center in the Center of Vascular Biology, USA. Dr Rodriguez is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA. Dr Rodriguez received her MD from New Jersey Medical School in Newark, USA, and then continued with postdoctoral fellowships at the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (in the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry), USA and then John Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism. Dr Rodriguez is a member of professional societies including the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, and the Endocrine Society, and she is an immediate past member of the NIH Atherosclerosis and Inflammation Cardiovascular study section. Dr Rodriguez conducts basic science research in the area of lipid metabolism, with a particular emphasis on aspects of lipoprotein scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) in atherosclerosis and infertility. In mice, deficiency of SR-BI is associated with higher HDL cholesterol levels, but paradoxically with increased risk for atherosclerosis and female infertility. Utilizing in vitro and in vivo approaches, Dr Rodriguez's laboratory was the first to demonstrate that two human SR-BI gene (SCARB1) variants were significantly associated with reduced SR-BI function and expression in macrophages. Moreover, Dr Rodriguez's laboratory recently showed that a synonymous variant in the exon 8 of the human SCARB1 gene significantly affected the RNA secondary structure, and this in turn, significantly reduced SR-BI protein expression. Dr Rodriguez recently completed studies funded by a Burroughs Wellcome Clinical Translational Award to study the effects of SR-BI deficiency on human female fertility, and continues to be funded by NIH RO1 grant mechanism that examines the functional effect of SR-BI gene variation on SR-BI protein expression, and its association with cardiovascular outcomes.