Lilly Diabetes Center of Excellence

Robert Considine, PhD
Indiana Biosciences Research Institute
1345 W. 16 th St. Suite 300
Indianapolis, IN 46202
rconsidine@indianabiosciences.org

Office: 317-983- 3350
Lab: 317-983- 3350

Research Summary

IBRI DIABETES CENTER (IDC) - LILLY DIABETES CENTER OF EXCELLENCE

Focus: Cutting-edge diabetes research

With the establishment in the fall of 2018 of the Lilly Diabetes Center of Excellence (LDCE), a collaboration between Eli Lilly and Company, Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine and the IBRI, the LDCE became the research core of the IBRI Diabetes Center.

The LDCE aims to become a nexus of strategically aligned basic diabetes research in central Indiana by recruiting promising and established principal investigators (PIs) who will pursue cutting-edge research in diabetes, diabetic complications and related metabolic disorders.

The PIs will have five-year sponsored appointments at the IBRI, subsidized by Lilly, as well as faculty appointments at the IU School of Medicine. Each PI will pursue their area of research with full academic freedom. Lilly is providing opportunities for close collaboration, including access to drug discovery tools and expertise, allowing faculty to rapidly explore the translational potential of their research. The LDCE will also serve as a bridge between academia and industry by providing opportunities for interaction, training and mentoring across the IBRI, Lilly and IU School of Medicine. 

 

Lab Team

Robert Considine

Robert Considine, PhD

Professor of Medicine, Director, IBRI Diabetes Center

Robert Considine

Robert Considine, PhD

Professor of Medicine, Director, IBRI Diabetes Center

Robert V. Considine, Ph.D., joined the Division of Endocrinology at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Ind., as an Assistant Professor in 1997 and was promoted to Professor in 2013. Prior to his appointment at the IU School of Medicine, he was on the faculty of the Department of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pa., where he had completed his doctoral training.

Dr. Considine’s research is focused on understanding the contribution of obesity to the development of diabetes and its complications. In early work, his lab made seminal observations about the function of the adipose tissue hormone leptin in humans.  More recently, the Considine lab has focused on the effects of bariatric surgery to alter gut hormone release and improve glucose homeostasis and insulin sensitivity.  In collaboration with David Kareken, Ph.D., at the IU School of Medicine, Dr. Considine is also utilizing neuroimaging techniques to understand the reward system response to food cues in human subjects.  

Dr. Considine is currently the Associate Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Diabetes Center at the IU School of Medicine, and oversees the Analyte Laboratory, which provides quantitation of adipokines, cytokines, gut peptides and hormones from human and animal samples.  He is also the Statewide Director for Endocrine and Reproductive Biology, a second-year course in the IU School of Medicine curriculum. 

Decio Eizirik

Decio Eizirik, MD, PhD

Research Fellow, IBRI Diabetes Center

Decio Eizirik

Decio Eizirik, MD, PhD

Research Fellow, IBRI Diabetes Center

Dr. Eizirik is Full Professor and Director of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) Center for Diabetes Research, Brussels, Belgium, and a member of the ULB medical faculty. He is also a Research Fellow for the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute (IBRI), Indianapolis.

He has published more than 350 full papers and reviews in peer-reviewed international journals and has received several national and international prizes, including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Diabetes Care Research Award in 1998; the “2012 Albert Renold Prize Lecture for Outstanding Achievements in Research on the Islets of Langerhans” awarded by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in 2012, and the “2013 Rumbough Award for outstanding achievements in type 1 diabetes research” awarded by the JDRF.

Dr. Eizirik is listed by the ISI Essential Science Indicators among the 1 percent most cited scientists in Clinical Medicine and Biology & Biochemistry, with an h-index of 78. He has served as Honorary (Scientific) Secretary of the EASD and as Deputy Editor of Diabetologia, the official journal of the EASD. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms regulating insulitis and beta cell apoptosis in type 1 diabetes, pancreatic beta cell imaging, generation of beta cells from inducible pluripotent cells and on the search for novel approaches to prevent the progressive loss of beta cell mass in diabetes.

William Carter

William Carter

Research Analyst, IBRI Diabetes Center

William Carter

William Carter

Research Analyst, IBRI Diabetes Center

William (Bill) Carter joined the IBRI in July 2019 as research analyst in the IBRI Diabetes Center (IDC). In this role he is establishing a lab to facilitate various cell studies that will support the IDC’s regenerative  medicine program and other diabetes research efforts.

Before joining the IBRI and since 2014, he worked on his family’s Indiana farm where he was able to apply his extensive scientific and research background to crop genetics and animal breeding and nutrition. From 2003 to 2014, he served as manager of the Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI) Transgenic Core Facility (TGF) in Indianapolis where he ran multiple cell manipulation studies. He also served as the TGF’s research technician from 2001 to 2003.

Bill earned his B.S. and M.S., both in Biology from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.