Professor, Department of Pediatrics; Director, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, McGill University Health Center (Children's Hospital)

Dr. Constantin Polychronakos is a physician scientist who has made seminal contributions to understanding the cause of type 1 diabetes, towards finding an effective prevention for this common and serious disease. As a paediatric endocrinologist, he is motivated on a daily basis by his contact with his young patients to push the understanding of what in an individual’s genome makes them susceptible to diabetes. Using cutting edge technologies he has advanced the cause of developing tools that, early in life, can identify those individuals susceptible to the disease and intervene to prevent their immune system from destroying their insulin-producing cells.