Dr. Myers is the Marilyn H. Vincent Professor of Diabetes Research and Director of the Caswell Diabetes Institute at the University of Michigan. He received his BA from Princeton University and MD/PhD from Harvard University. He launched his independent research career at the Joslin Diabetes Center before joining the University of Michigan faculty in 2004. Dr Myers’ research focuses on the CNS regulation of metabolism and body weight, including how diabetes medicines exert their effects. Dr. Myers previously served as the Editor of Diabetes and has received numerous honors for his scientific contributions, including Outstanding Scientific Achievement Awards from The Obesity Society and the American Diabetes Association.

Sabrina Diano is the Robert R. Williams Professor and Director of the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University. She is a faculty in the department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University and an adjunct Professor in the department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University. Her research aims to decipher intracellular mechanisms that enable brain cells to sense and respond to changes in circulating signals, including nutrients and hormones, in the control of food intake and energy and glucose metabolism.

Zach Gerhart-Hines carried out his doctoral studies on mitochondrial biology and skeletal muscle function within the context of metabolic diseases, from 2004 to 2011, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School in the lab of Professor Pere Puigserver, Ph.D. Then from 2011-2014, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania in the lab of Dr. Mitch Lazar, M.D., Ph.D., where he continued a focus on obesity and type 2 diabetes through the interrogation of the circadian control of adipose tissue metabolism. In 2014, Zach began his own research group at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen where his lab broadly interrogates peripheral and central mechanisms of homeostatic control. His ultimate goal is to leverage these discoveries to develop novel pharmacotherapies for the treatment of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and associated diseases. He is a co-founder of Embark Biotech, Embark Laboratories, and Incipiam Pharma, spinouts based on targeting different energy-expending modes-of-action.