Sonia Caprio, MD

I have been involved in Patient-Oriented Research in the field of Childhood Obesity and Type 2 diabetes (T2D) in youth for the past 25 years. Realizing the need to understand the pathophysiology and to find better treatments for T2D in Obese Youth, I have been investigating the role of insulin resistance and beta-cell dysfunction at the earliest stage of T2D, namely Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT). My research in pre-diabetes in obese children and adolescents has brought into focus at the national level the magnitude of the obesity problem in children in the US. This research demonstrated a much faster tempo of progression of beta-cell failure in obese adolescents, which helped to stimulate the funding of two NIDDK RCTs in obese youth; The TODAY and RISE studies. In recognition of the importance of this work, in 2008 Dr. Caprio was awarded the prestigious “Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award (DCSA)” from the American Diabetes Association. Her research spans both clinical and basic research in metabolism, genetics, and imaging and is the recipient of the “Distinguished Leader in Insulin Resistance” 2015 Award from the International Committee for Insulin Resistance (ICIR). Over the past decade, our group has assembled two large multiethnic cohorts of children/adolescents cohorts: The Pathogenesis of Youth Onset Diabetes (PYOD) study (NCT01967849), (R01HD040787, R01DK111038), and The Yale Pediatric NAFLD/NASH Cohort (NCT01966627), which served as the vehicle for a series of studies aimed at investigating the roles of insulin resistance, beta-cell dysfunction and NAFLD in the earliest stage of T2D: Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT).