Vivian A. Fonseca, MD, FRCP, is Professor of Medicine, the Tullis–Tulane Alumni Chair in Diabetes, and chief of the Section of Endocrinology at Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. Dr. Fonseca's research interests include prevention and treatment of diabetic complications and risk factor reduction in cardiovascular disease. He is an investigator in the NIH-funded Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) study and the TINSAL–2D study. He is funded by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to study the impact of hurricane Katrina on diabetes and comorbidities.

Dr. Fonseca is a fellow of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the Royal College of Physicians (London), and the American College of Physicians. A member of the Endocrine Society, the International Diabetes Federation, and the ADA, Dr. Fonseca chairs ADA's Clinical Practice committee and serves on the joint ADA/American College of Cardiology Make the Link! program. He has lectured in the United States and abroad and published over 200 papers, review articles, and book chapters; he is editor of the textbook Clinical Diabetes: Translating Research into Practice (Elsevier 2006).

Dr. Fonseca is editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care and an ad hoc reviewer for several journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Diabetes.

David E. Cohen, MD, PhD

David E. Cohen is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of Health Sciences Technology at the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology in Boston , Massachusetts . He is also Chair of the MD Admissions Committee of the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology and Director of Hepatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Dr. Cohen's research interests include the role of START domain proteins in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism and the impact of obesity on hepatic cholesterol metabolism. His research has been published in Nature Structural Biology, the American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Lipid Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Hepatology, Gene, Gastroenterology, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, and Biochemistry, and he is the author of several book chapters. Dr. Cohen serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Physiology: Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology and Hepatology, and he is a reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Investigation; American Journal of Physiology; Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology; Clinical Nutrition; the Journal of Biological Chemistry; Biochimica et Biophysica Acta; Heptaology; the Journal of Lipid Research; and Lipids. He is a Fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the American Gastroenterological Association.

Dr. Cohen earned his MD from Harvard Medical School and a PhD in physiology and biophysics at Harvard University . Following his residencies, Dr. Cohen served as a research fellow in gastroenterology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Subsequently, he completed both a clinical and research fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham Women's Hospital. Prior to joining the faculty, he served as a senior fellow in hepatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Steven Kliewer is professor of molecular biology and pharmacology and holds the Hamon Distinguished Chair in basic cancer research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas , Texas . His research is focused on nuclear receptors and their roles in xenobiotic and lipid metabolism. While a research investigator at Glaxo, Inc. in Research Triangle Park , North Carolina , Dr. Kliewer founded a scientific group devoted to exploiting orphan nuclear receptors as drug discovery targets; the group discovered that PPAR g is the molecular target for the thiazolidinedione class of diabetes drugs. Dr. Kliewer earned his BS in biochemistry from Brown University in Providence , Rhode Island, and his PhD in molecular biology from the University of California , Los Angeles . He became interested in orphan nuclear receptors during his postdoctoral studies at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.