The Endocrine Society's new Jesse Roth Award and Lecture—named in memory of groundbreaking diabetes researcher Jesse Roth, MD—will recognize a physician-scientist’s outstanding research in hormone action, diabetes or metabolism. Winners of the prize will receive an honorarium and a travel grant to ENDO. The award also will provide ENDO travel support for two early career scientists presenting abstracts on hormone action, diabetes or metabolism.
The award honors Roth’s contributions to diabetes research. His work revolutionized the understanding of diabetes by providing the first direct evidence that cells carry a specific receptor for insulin. His research showed that diabetes can occur when those cells have faulty receptors or too few receptors.
To add your support to the Roth Award and Lecture, the associated travel grants for fellows and junior faculty, or any of the Society’s other programs, visit the Society’s donation website.
Click here for information on nominations.
The inaugural winner is C. Ronald Kahn, MD, of Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. Kahn will deliver a lecture at ENDO 2027 as part of the prize.
An expert in diabetes and obesity research, Kahn studies insulin signal transduction and mechanisms of altered signaling in diabetes and metabolic disease. He is head of the Section on Physiology and Metabolism and the Chief Academic Officer of Joslin Diabetes Center, where he previously served as president and research director. In addition, he is the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Kahn noted, “Jesse Roth transformed our understanding of insulin action and inspired generations of scientists through his extraordinary mentorship. His mentorship helped guide and shape my own career path. It is deeply meaningful to be selected as the inaugural recipient of an award bearing his name, particularly one that will help early-career researchers pursue the kinds of ambitious questions that defined Jesse’s career.”
Dr. Jesse Roth spent nearly three decades at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., where he served as Scientific Director of the National Institute of Digestive and Diabetes and Kidney Diseases. He later worked at Johns Hopkins University in Bethesda, Md., and the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y.
Roth served on the Endocrine Society’s Board of Directors from 1993 to 1996, and he received the Society’s Fred Conrad Koch Award, the Robert H. Williams Distinguished Leadership Award and the Ernst Oppenheimer Memorial Award. Roth died in March 2026 at the age of 91.
Roth was a valued mentor to many in the endocrine community, including Nobel Prize winner Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, and Kahn, the prize’s inaugural winner. Lefkowitz; Kahn; Jeffrey S. Flier, MD; Dominic Accili, MD; Simeon Taylor, M.D.; and Alan Shuldiner, MD, envisioned the award and raised the funds to create it.
