Issue 7 – Autumn 2007

The most important ESPE awards and prizes are the Andrea Prader Prize, the Research Award, the Outstanding Clinician Award and the Young Investigator Award. These awards and prizes are kindly supported by Pfizer through an unrestricted educational grant. Andrea Prader Prize The Andrea Prader Prize was first awarded 19 years ago and is named after the founder of paediatric endocrinology in Europe. 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. The 2007 Andrea Prader Prize has been awarded to Martin Savage. Professor Martin Savage began his studies in medicine in 1962 at Magdalene College in Cambridge and obtained his degree in 1968. From September 1975 to June 1977 he was Clinical Research Fellow in Paediatric Endocrinology at Hôpital Saint Vincent-de-Paul in Paris, France. His first papers were published in the early 1970s and were devoted to endocrine disorders in children. During the following 25 years Professor Savage's scientific interests focused particularly on disorders of growth and puberty. At present Martin Savage is both Professor of Paediatric Endocrinology and Head of Paediatric Endocrinology Section at Queen Mary's, University of London, UK. Martin Savage has been an ESPE member for almost 30 years. He has served the Society as Chair of several committees and as Secretary General from 1997 to 2004. More recently he has chaired the ESPE Corporate Liaison Board for more than 2 years. Research Award The Research Award is given to an ESPE member in recognition of clinical and/or basic scientific achievements that have made an important contribution to paediatric endocrinology The 2007 winner of the Research Award is Professor Primus Mullis from Bern, Switzerland. Primus Mullis is Professor of Paediatric Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism at the University of Bern and Head of the Division of Paediatric Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism at the University Children's Hospital in Bern. He graduated in medicine in 1981. From 1988 to 1990 he was a Research Fellow for Medical Molecular Biology and Paediatric Endocrinology at University College and Middlesex Medical School of Medicine, London. Honorary Senior Registrar and Honorary Research Fellow in Endocrinology and Metabolism at the John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, UK. Professor Mullis has been an ESPE officer for the past 5 years and chairperson of ESPE Research Unit since 2005. Outstanding Clinician Award This award is given each year to an ESPE member who has made an outstanding contribution as a clinical paediatric endocrinologist and has shown particular dedication and commitment throughout their career to the care of children with endocrine disorders. The winner of the Outstanding Clinician Award in 2007 was Catherine Dacou-Voutetakis. Professor Dacou-Voutetakis graduated from the University Medical School in Athens, Greece. She then trained in Paediatrics and Paediatric Endocrinology in the United States. Her paediatric endocrine training involved working with A M DiGeorge on a project investigating congenital absence of the thymus and its immunologic consequences (DiGeorge Syndrome). Back in Greece, Catherine Dacou-Voutetakis was appointed to the University School of Medicine in Athens. She became an ESPE member in 1973, was an ESPE council member from 1977 to 1980 and in 1978, as ESPE President, organized the Annual ESPE Meeting in Athens. She was appointed President of the Hellenic Endocrine Society in 1984 and is a founding member of the Hellenic Diabetes Association. In 1995 Professor Dacou-Voutetakis founded the Hellenic Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Endocrinology and was the Society's President for 3 years. In 1985 she organized the support group 'Galen' for children and adolescents with endocrine disorders and diabetes, which holds yearly seminars for patients and their parents.
Young Investigator Award The Young Investigator Award was established in recognition of scientific publications produced by an investigator working in Europe, who is not older than 40 years of age by the end of the year in which the award is presented. The 2007 Young Investigator Award has been awarded to Dr Antje Körner, from Leipzig, Germany. Dr Körner is an extremely talented young paediatric endocrinologist and has already published several papers in internationally ranked journals. She has investigated and demonstrated the interaction of adipose tissue in obesity related disease starting from the differentiation dependent expression of adipocytokines in vitro, to the development or growth related adipocytokine serum levels in children in vivo, the early derangement of adipocytokine levels in obese children, their clinical associations and consequences, and, finally, biological actions of adipocytokines at the cellular level
Henning Andersen Prizes Generously supported by Novo Nordisk, these two awards are given to the most highly rated clinical and experimental abstracts submitted to the Society's Annual Meeting. The prizes in basic and clinical science are awarded to abstracts on the basis of the reviewer ranking. The prize for the best basic science abstract submitted for the 2007 ESPE meeting went to the abstract entitled ‘SF1 mutations are a frequent cause in 46,XY patients with ambiguous genitalia due to impaired testicular androgen synthesis without adrenal insufficiency’, by Dr Birgit Köhler et al. from Charite, Children's Hospital, Pediatric Endocrinology, Berlin, Germany. Other authors include Lin Lin, Vanessa Schröder, Heike Biebermann, Peter Heidemann, Peter Wieacker, Olaf Hiort, Annette Grüters and John Achermann. The prize for the best clinical science abstract submitted for the 2007 ESPE meeting went to the abstract entitled ‘Generalized glucocorticoid insensitivity: clinical phenotype and molecular mechanisms’, by Dr Evangelia Charmandari et al. from the Section on Pediatric Endocrinology at the NIH in Bethesda, USA. Other authors include Tomoshige Kino, Takamasa Ichijo and George Chrousos. Hormone Research Prizes The Hormone Research Prizes are sponsored by Karger and are awarded to the best original paper published and the best paper published in the ‘Novel Insights from Clinical Experience’ section. The prize for the best original paper has been awarded to the manuscript ‘Insulin Resistance Is an Intrinsic Defect Independent of Fat Mass in Women with Turner’s Syndrome’, 2006, B Salgin, R Amin, K Yuen, RM Williams, P Murgatroyd & DB Dunger (Hormone Research 65 69-75). The prize for the best paper published in the ‘Novel Insights from Clinical Experience’ section has been awarded to the manuscript ‘Importance of Genetic Diagnosis of DAX-1 Deficiency: Example from a Large, Multigenerational Family’, 2006, S Ostermann, R Salvi, M Lang-Muritano, M-J Voirol, R Puttinger, RC Gaillard, E Schoenle & FP Pralong (Hormone Research 65 163-168).