- It is of course an extremely stimulating encouragement for myself, for the research group I represent and for diabetes research to receive such a prize, a big and humble THANK YOU goes to the two foundations, Torsten Söderberg Foundation and Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, says Leif Groop, this year's winner and head of Lund University's Diabetes Center.

Leif Groop was one of the first to recognize the importance of type 2 diabetes research. With today's dramatic increase in patients with type 2 diabetes in many parts of the world, and the widespread ill health it causes, diabetes is one of the world's major public diseases.

- Our research has mainly tried to use genetics to describe the spectrum of diabetes. In order to individualize and improve treatment, we need to understand what form of diabetes the patient is suffering from," says Leif Groop. "The situation of treating diabetes only by lowering blood sugar is a bit like treating an infectious disease only by lowering the fever, we need to know more about the disease to be able to tailor the treatment," he continues.

Groop has identified genes that increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and how they interact with environmental factors that influence the development and progression of the disease. He focused his early research on the different forms of the disease. He was the first to describe a mixed form between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, known as LADA, and has contributed to knowledge about several previously unknown mixed forms. He has long been one of the most internationally recognized researchers in the field, with a very large number of published scientific articles, and has created a broad international network and supervised many of the researchers who are now considered to be at the forefront of diabetes research.

- We have been fortunate to be able to contribute to this research over the years, but much remains to be done. Diabetes is the fastest growing disease in the world and we cannot be satisfied until we find a cure for the disease; but a prerequisite is that we understand how the different subtypes arise," concludes Leif Groop.

The SEK 1 million prize was awarded at a scientific seminar on April 10, 2014 at the Swedish Medical Society in Stockholm.

Leif Groop
Leif Groop has been Professor of Endocrinology at Lund University since 1993 and Director of the Lund University Diabetes Center. He received his medical degree from the University of Bern, Switzerland and his PhD from the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has contributed greatly to the understanding of the role of genes in type 2 diabetes and was the discoverer of Lada, an autoimmune diabetes in adults that is often misdiagnosed as type 2 diabetes.

Groop has received several international awards, including the Claude Bernard and Anders Jahre awards. In 2013 he was also awarded the Fernström Foundation Prize. 

Diabetes Center