Cambridge diabetes researchers married for 48 years receive Joslin's Lifetime Achievement Award

Cambridge residents and renowned researchers, Dr. Gordon Weir and Dr. Susan Bonner-Weir, lead the beta cell research team at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and will receive the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award at Joslin’s annual black tie High Hopes Gala on November 19th for their innovative research on beta cell function, transplantation and protection that is critical in their work toward finding a cure for diabetes, a disease that affects over 29 million Americans.

The pair, who have been happily married for 48 years, have two daughters and five grandchildren. One of their daughters is a pediatric gastroenterologist at Children’s Hospital, located right across the street from Joslin, and the other is a journalist at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington D.C.

Dr. Gordon Weir is the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation Chair and co-head of Joslin’s Section on Islet Cell and Regenerative Biology and his wife, Dr. Susan Bonner-Weir, is a Senior Investigator in the Section on Islet Transplantation and Cell Biology at Joslin; each is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Brought together at Joslin while Susan was doing her postdoctoral research there in 1974, the pair have collaborated on numerous projects over the years, co-authoring over 150 papers together and even sharing a lab at Joslin.

“Our skills and knowledge are very complementary,” said Dr. Susan Bonner-Weir. “We are able to work together, publish papers together and have a very good relationship because of it.”

They trained at different institutions in Boston, with Dr. Bonner-Weir doing her postdoctoral training at Joslin. They started working together in Richmond, Virginia when they moved there in 1977. Later a sabbatical in Geneva, Switzerland allowed each to made substantial breakthroughs in their research. They moved to Joslin in 1984.

Dr. Gordon Weir, who served as Medical Director of the Joslin Clinic for nine years, recently co-authored a study published in Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology that found a way to prevent the immune system from destroying insulin-producing beta cells developed from stem cells in mice—which could mean a brighter future for type 1 diabetics if successful in human trials. Dr. Bonner-Weir is considered to be one of the world’s leading experts in beta cell morphology and growth. Her research aims to clarify the process by which the pancreas and its constituent islets grow and develop in order to find new sources of beta cells. Beta cells are the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas that are attacked by the immune system when someone has type 1 diabetes, and are depleted and unable to produce enough insulin when someone has type 2 diabetes. In 2000, she made a groundbreaking discovery that the ductal cells of the adult human pancreas has the potential to make new islets, which is widely accepted and appreciated today.

Dr. Gordon Weir is a key member of the Boston Autologous Islet Replacement Program (BAIRT) team, a collaborative program among the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), Joslin Diabetes Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Semma Therapeutics and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, that will work to translate insulin-producing beta cells which HSCI co-founder and renowned stem cell researcher Dr. Doug Melton has derived from stem cells into treatments that could ultimately cure diabetic patients. Dr. Melton, a close friend of the Weirs, was recognized at last year’s High Hopes Gala with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his research and noted how valuable his relationship with Dr. Weir has been in his work.

“We are humbled and honored to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award this year,” said Dr. Gordon Weir. “It is inspiring to work at Joslin, an institution with a mission that is so simple and powerful: to do whatever is possible to help people with diabetes through care and research.”

Joslin’s High Hopes Gala is a black-tie affair being held at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel on Saturday, November 19th from 6pm-midght; for tickets or more information please visit www.joslin.org/gala.