One of the world’s leading diabetes experts, Matthias von Herrath, M.D., has been named the new scientific director of the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Dr. von Herrath joins the Miller School after serving as professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego. He also is vice president and senior medical officer for Novo Nordisk, Inc., a Danish pharmaceutical company. He brings more than 25 years of dedicated research into diabetes and was twice ranked as the “#1 Juvenile Diabetes Expert” by Expertscape. Dr. von Herrath was the recipient of American Diabetes Association’s outstanding scientific achievement award in 2008, the German Diabetes Society’s Langerhans award in 2014, and also received a lifetime achievement award from The Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes (nPOD).

Dr. von Herrath earned his medical degree in 1988 from Freiburg Medical School, where he also completed a Ph.D. equivalent thesis on biochemistry. His postdoctoral training included an intensive care residency at Diakonie Hospital, Freiburg; a fellowship in medicine/immunology at Freiburg Medical Center; and a fellowship in virology at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.