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NIH funds diabetes research, training

Hanover, NH -- Paul Beisswenger always wanted to be all three: a serious medical researcher, a clinician who sees patients and a teacher. This Dartmouth Medical School Professor of Medicine was recently awarded two National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards that will help him reach this goal.

"I think only by combining research and the clinical can you truly understand the impact on people," says Beisswenger. His two awards will support his diabetes research and allow him to spend time mentoring younger investigators in the field.

One of his awards, which provides half of his salary for five years, supports Beisswenger as he teaches and guides the next generation of physicians and researchers. The second grant, about $2 million over four years, supports a population-based study to determine who is at risk for kidney disease as a result of diabetes.

"We got the NIH grant to pursue the question: why doesn't every diabetic get kidney failure," says Beisswenger. "Even with the same level of sugars, some get it and some don't. And it clusters in families and it clusters in ethnic groups. Our grant is to figure out how to look at a person and tell who's at risk and who's not at risk before they get they get the kidney disease."

For more information, contact Susan Knapp