Dr. Mark Atkinson is the American Diabetes Association Eminent Scholar for Diabetes Research and the Jeffrey Keene Family Professor at The University of Florida, where he also serves as Director for their Diabetes Institute. The author of over 600 publications, he is now in his 38th year of investigation into the field of type 1 diabetes (T1D). He has been the recipient of multiple scientific and humanitarian based awards for these efforts.

Dr. Atkinson has been active in a leadership service to the T1D community, with active administrative or advisory service to JDRF, ADA, The National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Immunology of Diabetes Society (IDS), and a variety of companies from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Dr. Atkinson is an internationally recognized authority on multiple aspects pertaining to T1D, with particular interests in disease prediction and prevention, the role for environment in the initiation of the disease, stem cells and pancreatic regeneration, identifying markers of tolerance and immunoregulation, and the identification of biological agents as a means to cure the disease and prevent it’s complications. Indeed, Expertscape (an organization that tracks scientific citations of researchers) notes that Dr. Atkinson was the second most cited authority of over 65,000 investigators in the world in all categories of diabetes, over the last decade.

Finally, Dr. Atkinson is active at a global level for causes related to the care and treatment of those in the third world; especially and including persons with T1D. For this cause, he serves as the founding President of Insulin for Life USA, and is an Advisor to Life for the International Diabetes Federation’s Life for a Child Program.