Prof. Kenneth Cusi

Dr. Cusi is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at The University of Florida at Gainesville (2011-present). He is also a faculty and researcher at the Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Division at the Veterans Administration Medical Center at Gainesville, FL. He received his medical degree and did his internal medicine residency in Buenos Aires, Argentina and completed a fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He moved to San Antonio, Texas (1992) to work on the role of defects in insulin secretion and insulin resistance to the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), as well as on complications associated with T2DM. He later focused on the relationship and underlying mechanisms of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in T2DM and its impact on dyslipidemia, diabetes control and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Cusi has contributed to the field on the underlying mechanisms of NAFLD in obesity and diabetes, and published the first RCT on pioglitazone for NASH for patients with prediabetes or T2DM (Belfort et al, NEJM 2006). This was followed by a recent long-term study confirming its value in this population (Cusi et al, Annals Intern Med 2016). Dr. Cusi’s current work at the University of Florida centers on discovering the mechanism(s) leading to NASH and searching for novel treatments. Dr. Cusi has published more than 150 original articles, reviews and book chapters in a broad spectrum of peer-reviewed journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Proceeding of the National Academy of Science, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Diabetes, Diabetes Care, J Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, American Journal of Physiology, Hepatology, Gastroenterology and others. He is an associate editor and reviewer for many journals in the fields of endocrinology, metabolism, diabetes and liver disease. He is a frequent invited lecturer to national and international meetings on the role of obesity and NAFLD in T2DM. He is a member of the NIH Clinical and Integrative Diabetes and Obesity (CIDO) study section and contributed to the panel of the 2012 and 2017 NASH guidelines of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. In 2015 Dr. Cusi received 2 prestigious awards by the University of Florida, the Exemplary Teacher Award and the Clinical Research Award for outstanding achievement, research discovery, and productivity from the College of Medicine.