Diabetes Research and its Relationship to Cancer

Dr. Debbie Thurmond, Ph.D., Director of the City of Hope’s Arthur Riggs Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute discusses the institute’s focus on the intersection of diabetes and cancer, helping to answer the reasons why diabetes is significantly associated with an increase in cancer and how the growing number of highly effective cancer therapies may cause insulin-dependent diabetes.  She also talks about how philanthropic support will drive more discovery for the diabetic patient community and address some of the biggest drivers of inequity across healthcare.  

Debbie Thurmond, Ph.D., is director of the Arthur Riggs Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute and a renowned research scientist, professor and the founding chair of the newly created Department of Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. Dr. Thurmond and her team will lead efforts to identify cellular and molecular mechanisms in diabetes development and therapies that can stop or reverse those processes. This can potentially lead to innovative treatment and prevention modalities for diabetes. Dr. Thurmond received her Ph.D. and postdoctoral training at the University of Iowa, and earned her M.S. and B.S. from the University of California Davis. She currently serves on multiple editorial boards, international grant review panels and as associate editor for Diabetologia.