European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD)
Category: Congress
Join our interactive symposium, "Bringing Early Autoimmune T1D Center Stage: Exploring Recent Advances and Expert Perspectives". Our expert faculty will explore the presymptomatic process of autoimmune Type 1 diabetes, and recent advances in early detection of autoimmune Type 1 diabetes, as well as share expert perspectives on delaying the destruction of pancreatic beta cells and beta-cell preservation.


Colin Dayan
Prof. Colin Dayan trained in medicine at University College, Oxford, and Guy’s and Charing Cross Hospitals in London, UK before obtaining a PhD in the immunology of Graves’ Disease in the Laboratory of Marc Feldmann.
Prof. Dayan then spent a year as an endocrine fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, before completing his specialist training in diabetes and endocrinology as a Lecturer in Bristol. In 2010, he was appointed to the Chair of Clinical Diabetes and Metabolism and Head of Section at Cardiff University School of Medicine and in 2020 as part-time Senior Clinical Researcher in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford.
Prof. Dayan has a long-established interest in translational research in the immunopathology of type 1 diabetes promoting progress to “insulin-free T1D”. He has published first-in-human clinical studies on the development of peptide immunotherapy and the use of nanoparticles in T1D as well as pioneering the use of lymph node and injection site sampling to monitor the response to therapy. Since 2015 he has been a leading member of the UKT1D-Research Consortium which has hosted more than 15 clinical trials in early T1D over 30 sites.

Anette Ziegler
Prof. Anette Ziegler is a German doctor and Director of the Institute of Diabetes Research at Helmholtz Center Munich. Prof. Ziegler studied medicine at LMU Munich. After obtaining her license to practice medicine and receiving her doctorate from LMU, she worked as a research fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, USA. She subsequently became adjunct professor at LMU Munich. From 2007 to 2009 she was Director of the Department of Endocrinology at Klinikum Schwabing in Munich. In 2010, she was appointed as Chair of Diabetes and Gestational Diabetes at the TUM university hospital, Klinikum rechts der Isar, and became Director of the newly founded Institute for Diabetes Research at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. She has been President of the Immunology of Diabetes Society since 2017. Since 2015, she has been leading the international study platform GPPAD.
Prof. Ziegler’s research focuses primarily on the understanding of the natural history of type 1 diabetes in humans, the identification of the mechanisms and predictive markers of the disease and the translation of findings into trials to prevent type 1 diabetes.

Linda DiMeglio
Dr. Linda Anne DiMeglio is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She completed her pediatrics residency at Lurie Children’s in Chicago and her pediatric endocrine fellowship and master’s in public health at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Dr. DiMeglio serves as the Edwin Letzter Professor and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology in the Department of Pediatrics at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the Vice Chair for Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet and co-PI of the national DiabDocs K12 Physician Scientist Program. Dr. DiMeglio also co-chairs the ISPAD Guidelines Editorial Board. Furthermore, she is the Indiana Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Co-Director of Workforce Development and co-chairs the CTSI Pediatric Project Development Team and the 2023 recipient of the JDRF Eisenbarth Award.

Emily K. Sims
Dr. Emily K. Sims is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine where she also serves as the Assistant Director of the Wells Center for Pediatric Research and an Associate Director of the IU Medical Scientist Training Program. Dr. Sims is an NIH-funded physician scientist specializing in pediatric endocrinology with a research focus on identification of mechanisms and biomarkers of intrinsic beta-cell dysfunction contributing to development of type 1 diabetes (T1D), clinical measurements of beta cell function that can be used to understand T1D heterogeneity and responses to disease-modifying therapies, and application of therapeutics aimed at improving beta cell health in T1D.