The ESPE Awards Session was held on Monday July 3rd. This year the winners were: Andrea Prader Prize: Prof Ieuan Hughes, Cambridge, UK Research Award and Lecture: Prof Mikael Knip, Helsinki, Finland Outstanding Clinician Award: Dr Ruth Illig, Zurich, Switzerland Young Investigator Award: Dr Mireille Castanet, Paris, France In addition to these outstanding personal achievements, the Henning Andersen prizes were awarded for the best abstracts submitted to this year's meeting: • The prize for best clinical research abstract was awarded to Irene Netchine and colleagues from Paris, Dunkerque, Besançon, France; Brussels, Belgium and Szczecin, Poland. Her presentation was titled “Epimutation of the telomeric domain on chromosome 11p15 is a major and specific cause of Silver-Russell syndrome”. • The prize for best basic research abstract went to Ken McElreavey and co-workers from Paris, France and Budapest, Hungary. His talk was titled “Ultra high resolution whole-genome comparative genome hyridization applied to patients with anomalies of gonadal development”. Andrea Prader Prize This is the most prestigious ESPE Award. The prize recognises and rewards outstanding leadership and scientific contributions through the course of a career. The prize also draws attention to contributions to training in paediatric endocrinology. This year the Andrea Prader Prize was awarded to Professor Ieuan Hughes. Professor Hughes trained in Cardiff, London and Manitoba, Canada, and was a ESPE Awards at the 45th Annual Meeting Senior Lecturer and Reader at the University of Wales, Cardiff before becoming Head of the Department of Paediatrics, University of Cambridge in 1989. He has authored over 270 scientific articles and 60 books or book chapters covering his wide-ranging research interests in the physiology, genetics, pathology and psychology of sexual differentiation and puberty. Most recently he was instrumental in co ordinating the ESPE/LWPES Consensus Statement on Disorders of Sex Development, while his “Handbook of endocrine investigations in children” has been an essential text for paediatric endocrinologists for over 20 years. Ieuan Hughes was the ESPE Secretary in 1987- 1992, and the ESPE President in 1992/3. Research Award and Lecture Mikael Knip received the ESPE Research Award for his contributions to Type 1 diabetes research. Professor Knip is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Helsinki, and Director of the Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Project (DIPP) in Tampere, Finland, which has screened tens of thousands of newborns for high risk HLA DQB1 alleles. To date, over 8500 children with increased genetic risk for type 1 diabetes have been identified, and these studies have been instrumental to the identification of important genetic, immunological and environmental determinants of Type 1 diabetes. Mikael also delivered an outstanding symposium lecture on the primary prevention of diabetes, entitled “Cow's Milk, Sunlight, Vitamins and other interventions”. Outstanding Clinician Award Dr Ruth Illig received the outstanding clinician award for her many years of dedication to paediatric endocrinology. She was one of the founding members of ESPE, who made a major contribution to the clinical detection, biochemical confirmation, and treatment of growth hormone deficiency together with Andrea Prader, and her eponym “Illig's Syndrome” was originally given to describe growth hormone deficiency. Dr Illig also made vital contributions to the application of TSH assays for newborn hypothyroidism screening. ESPE is delighted to acknowledge Ruth Illig as one of the key pioneers of our discipline. Young Investigator Award Dr Mireille Castanet received the ESPE Young Investigator Award on the basis of her impressive publications on the genetics of congenital hypothyroidism. Mireille trained in paediatric endocrinology at the Robert Debré Hospital, Paris, with Professor Michel Polak, and recently investigated the genetics of thyroid resistance with Professor Chatterjee in Cambridge. Mireille has published first-authored articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, JCEM, Pediatric Research, Human Molecular Genetics and the European Journal of Human Genetics
