Professor Elif Ekinci is a clinician scientist, an academic endocrinologist who is working to translate research into improved outcomes for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Her research is focused on the pathophysiology, prevention, detection and treatment of diabetes and its complications in humans. She is the Weary Dunlop Medical Research Foundation Professorial Fellow in Metabolic Medicine and Dame Kate Campbell Fellow at The University of Melbourne, Department of Medicine, Austin Health. The Dame Kate Campbell Fellowship is given to researchers recognising incredible contributions to the University of Melbourne for outstanding research and wider involvement in our local community and across the globe. She has supervised 12 higher degrees to completion and is currently supervising 12 PhD students. She has over 200 peer reviewed publications in the leading diabetes, obesity and metabolism journals and has an H index of 40. She has attracted over $25 M in research funding and has received multiple awards for her work. She has had an accelerated career trajectory in the past five years, having had career disruptions to care for her three young children previously. She is also the Head of Diabetes at Austin Health, where she co-ordinates the clinical care of inpatients and outpatients with diabetes. She heads diabetes and obesity clinical trials at Austin Health at the Centre for Research and Education in Diabetes and Obesity. Prof Ekinci is the inaugural director of Australian Centre for Accelerating Diabetes Innovations (ACADI). In 2022, ACADI was established through MRFF funding from the Australian Government’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program, delivered by MTPConnect. ACADI has been awarded $10million from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund and received over $13million in cash and in- kind support from its partners. Led out of the University of Melbourne, ACADI will deliver novel interventions for timely diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diabetes and its complications with the access to clinical evaluation, leadership and networks, research commercialisation experience and workforce training. ACADI's design responds to key barriers slowing Australian development of innovations.

Dr Tomasz Block is an Endocrinology Research Fellow at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. Alongside clinical practice, he is undertaking a NHMRC funded PhD supervised by Professors Merlin Thomas and Mark Cooper within the Department of Diabetes at Monash University, investigating the role of RNA therapy to treat diabetic cardiovascular and renal complications.

Richard MacIsaac is a clinician-researcher who is currently Professor and Director of Endocrinology and Diabetes at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He is also the diabetes kidney disease co-stream leader for the Australian Centre for Accelerating Diabetes Innovations (ACADI), University of Melbourne. He has been a principal investigator for numerous diabetes clinical trials related to cardiovascular and kidney outcomes, including the landmark LEADER, SUSTAIN 6, CANVAS R, SCORED, FIGARO, FIDELIO and FLOW studies. His main research interest is diabetes and its acute and chronic complications, especially those related to cardiovascular and kidney disease. He has published over 300 research articles. His current specific research interests include inpatient glycaemic control, defining the albuminuria and glomerular filtration rate relationship in diabetes, investigating new biomarkers for kidney and vascular disease in diabetes and studying kidney function in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.