Jay S. Skyler, MD, MACP

Currently a Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, & Psychology, in the Division of Endocrinology Diabetes & Metabolism, Department of Medicine, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida. He served as Director of that Division from 2000 to 2004. He is Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Academic Programs at the Diabetes Research Institute, University of Miami, where he previously was Area Leader for Immunomodulation and Tolerance. He also is a Member of the University of Miami Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute. He was Program Director of UM’s NIH General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) from 2001 to 2006. He was chairman of the faculty planning committee for the University’s Clinical Research Building, a 336,000 square foot facility which opened in 2006. He also is an Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, University of Colorado at Denver. From 1993 until 2015, he was Chairman of the NIH (NIDDK)-sponsored Diabetes Prevention Trial – Type 1 (DPT-1) and its successor Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet, a nationwide (and global) network conducting clinical trials to interdict type 1 diabetes. Dr. Skyler currently is Chair of the Strategy Advisory Group for INNODIA, a European consortium of academic and industry groups developing innovative approaches towards understanding and arresting type 1 diabetes.

A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Skyler is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and Jefferson Medical College, and did his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and in Endocrinology & Metabolism at Duke University Medical Center. He also was on the faculty at Duke, where he was Director of Diabetes & Nutrition Education, was Medical Director of the Physician’s Associate Program, and was named an Honorary Physician’s Associate in recognition of distinguished teaching. He worked two years at the Hypertension-Endocrine Branch (Section on Biochemical Pharmacology) of the National Heart and Lung Institute, National Institutes of Health. He joined the University of Miami in 1976.

Dr. Skyler’s career in diabetes spans five decades, beginning as a medical student in 1967. For 13 summers, he served as director of a diabetes summer camp, where he became recognized for using camp as a locus for training of medical and nursing students, house staff, and fellows. At the University of Miami, he initiated and for 10 years served as Director of the Diabetes Metabolic Unit, responsible for both adults and children. During his tenure as Director, that unit was in the forefront of instituting team based care of diabetes, using nurses, dietitians, social workers, psychologists, and patient counselors. Consequently, it attained national and international prominence, being selected as the model diabetes unit to represent the United States at the Worldwide Diabetes Care Program held in conjunction with the 12th International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Congress in Madrid in 1985.

His research has always been in clinical aspects of diabetes, particularly the conduct of randomized controlled clinical trials. The research has included improving the care of type 1 diabetes through meticulous glycemic control, psychosocial and behavioral support, and a particular focus on immune intervention. He also has long been interested in the complications of diabetes, and in the relationships between blood glucose, blood pressure, and complications. For his research, he had continuous research support from the National Institutes of Health from 1979 through 2015, at which time he stepped down as TrialNet Chairman. Subsequently, he again received grant support from NIH commencing in 2017.

Dr. Skyler was a pioneer in the use of patient self-monitoring of blood glucose and in developing the concept of “Intensive Insulin Therapy.” He is widely acclaimed for his “algorithms” for patient adjustment of insulin doses. For these contributions, Dr. Skyler received the 1985 Achievement Award of the American Society of Contemporary Medicine & Surgery “for Distinguished Contributions to the Knowledge of Diabetes Mellitus” (presented by Dr. Michael DeBakey).

Other honors include giving a plenary lecture and receiving the Plenary Medal at the 13th IDF Congress in Sydney, Australia in 1988, and giving a plenary lecture and receiving a Plenary Plaque at the 15th IDF Congress in Kobe, Japan in 1994. He was the First George Eisenbarth Memorial Lecturer for the Immunology of Diabetes Society in December 2013. He was the recipient of the 2014 Distinction in Endocrinology Award from the American College of Endocrinology. He also was the recipient of the 2015 Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award from the Faculty Senate of the University of Miami. He received the 2015 Mary Tyler Moore/S. Robert Levine Award for Distinction in Clinical Research from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He received the 2016 Alumni Achievement Award of Jefferson Medical College. He received the 2017 Josiah K. Lilly Award from the American Diabetes Association. In 2017, he was recognized as a recipient of the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who’sWho.

Dr. Skyler’s principal research focus is in modulating the type 1 diabetes disease process through immunoregulation. Beginning in the 1980s, he and his colleagues conducted some of the first research using cyclosporine as immune intervention and demonstrated that this resulted in sustained beta-cell function. This was conducted with the first NIH research grant for immune intervention in human type 1 diabetes. His group was the first to conduct human studies with a monoclonal antibody in type 1 diabetes, an anti-CD5 monoclonal antibody linked to ricin A-chain to make an immunotoxin. Beginning in 1993, he designed and served as Study Chairman for the nationwide multicenter NIH-sponsored Diabetes Prevention Trial for Type 1 Diabetes (DPT-1), which examined the possible effects of parenteral insulin and of oral insulin in delaying type 1 diabetes in subjects at increased risk of the disease. Following this (beginning in 2002), he was Study Chairman of its successor, the NIH Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet Clinical Trials Study Group. TrialNet has conducted a variety of intervention trials in both recent-onset type 1 diabetes and in subjects at risk of the disease, as well as further defining the natural history of the disease and its pathophysiology. He served as chairman of these two NIH programs (DPT-1 and TrialNet) for a span of 22 years. A total of 14 clinical trials were initiated during his tenure.

Dr. Skyler has served the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in many capacities. He served a six-year term on the ADA Board of Directors (1978-84), five times directed the ADA’s national postgraduate course, served on multiple ADA Committees and Task Forces, and was President of the Florida Affiliate. As Chairman of the ADA Committee on Camps, he chaired the first program establishing standards for diabetes summer camps. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the national ADA Board of Directors from 1989 through 1992, serving as Vice-President in 1989-90, President-Elect in 1990-91, and as 50th national President in 1991-92. He received the 1992 Banting Medal for Service to ADA. Skyler represented ADA on the Council of Subspecialty Societies (CSS) of the American College of Physicians (ACP) for six years, and was Chair of the CSS for 1996-1999 and a member of the ACP Board of Regents those three years. He also was Chair of ACP’s Research Center Advisory Committee and a member of ACP’s Oversight Group monitoring the Subspecialist/Generalist Interface. He served on the Finance Committee of the ACP-ASIM Foundation. In recognition of his many contributions to medicine, in 2005, he was named a Master of the American College of Physicians (MACP), the highest level of Fellowship attained by very few.

Jay Skyler has been instrumental in starting several of ADA’s publications. He was founding Editor-in-Chief of the ADA professional journal, Diabetes Care, serving five years in that position (1978-1982), during which time Diabetes Care attained the highest circulation of any journal in the field of Endocrinology, Diabetes, & Metabolism, a position it still holds. Diabetes Care has also thrived academically, and now has an impact factor of 15.270. Then, during his tenure as Chairman of the Committee on Publications, ADA launched Clinical Diabetes. During his Presidency, ADA decided to launch Diabetes Reviews. He was the second Editor-in-Chief of Diabetes Reviews during 1998 and 1999, and served as Associate Editor for Reviews of Diabetes Care in 2000 and 2001 after Diabetes Reviews was merged into Diabetes Care.

Dr. Skyler completed a six-year term (1986-1991) as a member of the Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism Subspecialty Examining Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), and then served as first Chairman of the ABIM Re-Certification Committee for Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism (1992-95). He was President of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation (SSCI) for 1992-93. He was a Vice-President of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) (1994-2000) and was a member of the IDF Executive Board for nine years (1991-2000). He was a member of the founding Executive Committee of the International Diabetes Immunotherapy Group (IDIG), and subsequently was IDIG President 1999-2001. He was a member of the Council of the Immunology of Diabetes Society (IDS) during 1999-2001. He has served the European Association for the Study of Diabetes as a member of the Advisory Board of its journal Diabetologia (2005-2010) and on its annual meeting program committee (2016).

From its inception in 2006 through 2019, Dr. Skyler was a Co-Chairman of the annual Cardiometabolic Health Congress. He serves on the Steering Committee for the Advanced Technology and Therapeutics for Diabetes (ATTD) annual meetings, and for the University of Colorado Keystone meeting on Achieving Targets in Diabetes Care (ATDC).

Dr. Skyler has been author, editor, or co-editor of 21 books or monographs, and has written over 525 articles, book chapters, or editorials. He also has edited 14 special journal symposia. He has been on the editorial boards of several journals, including the American Journal of Medicine; American Journal of Medical Sciences; Diabetes Care; Diabetic Medicine; Diabetologia; Diabetes Research & Clinical Practice; Diabetes/Metabolism Research & Reviews; Diabetes, Nutrition, & Metabolism; Clinical Diabetes; Diabetes Spectrum; The Endocrinologist; Journal of Diabetes; Journal of Diabetes & Its Complications; Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism; Diabetes Reviews; Psychosomatic Medicine; and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. For 22 years he was Scientific Editor of International Diabetes Monitor (of which he was founding Scientific Editor). For 12 years, he was Senior Editor of Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics. He is a regular reviewer for many journals, including JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Skyler is a scientific advisor to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical equipment industries, advising over 230 companies during the past 40 years. He has been a member or chair of the Medical Scientific Advisory Board for many of these companies. He has chaired advisory committees for Adocia, Alinea, Amylin, Aventis, Astra-Zeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Dance Biopharma, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Glaxo-Wellcome, Halozyme, Intarcia, IVAX, Kos, Lipha, MannKind, Merck, MiniMed, Novartis, Novo-Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Tolerion, Veroscience, and Wyeth. He was a Founder and on the Board of Directors of Mega Technologies, Inc., which became a part of Biogenix Corporation/Exact Science, Inc., which was acquired by Abbott Laboratories in 1990. He chaired the Scientific Advisory Board, beginning in 1989, and was on the Board of Directors of MiniMed Inc. (NASDAQ – MNMD), developer of novel insulin pump technology and of the first continuous glucose monitoring system, until that company was acquired by Medtronic in 2001 (for $3.4 billion). He was on the Board of Directors of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ – AMLN) from 1999 until that company was acquired by Bristol-Myers-Squibb and Astra-Zeneca in 2012 (for $7 billion), and during his tenure Amylin had three first-in-class products approved – Symlin (the first amylin agonist), Byetta (the first incretin mimetic), and Bydureon (the first weekly incretin mimetic). Since 2002, he has been on the Board of Directors of Dexcom, Inc., which had a successful IPO (initial public offering) in April 2005 to become a NASDAQ listed company – DXCM, and which had its first continuous glucose sensor approved in 2006, and its sixth generation sensor approved in 2018, and currently has a market cap of $38 billion). He is a member of the Board of Directors of Applied Therapeutics, which had a successful IPO in May 2019 to become a NASDAQ listed company – APLT. He also currently serves on the Board of Directors of Intarcia Therapeutics, a private company.