Speaker Profile
Itamar Raz

Itamar Raz MD

Internal Medicine
Tel Aviv Yafo, Tel Aviv, Israel

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Itamar Raz, MD, received his medical degree from the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical School in Jerusalem in 1980. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, is a full professor of Internal Medicine, and was the Head of the Diabetes Unit at Hadassah University Hospital from 2000-2015. Prof. Raz is currently serving as head of the Israeli National Council of Diabetes and is the initiator and leader of the National Diabetes Prevention and Care Plan in Israel. In addition, Prof. Raz is President of D-Cure, a non-profit organization that promotes and funds scientific research in Israel for finding a cure and better treatments for diabetes. Past, he served as president of the Israel Diabetes Association from 1992-2004.

At Hadassah, Prof. Raz's basic research activities have focused on beta-cell survival and function in animal models developed in his lab (Psammomys and Cohen rats). He has been active in researching the prevention of type 1 diabetes, being an international principal investigator of novel therapeutics. In addition, he is currently leading several large international CV outcome diabetes (type 2) studies, in collaboration with the prestigious Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) Group from Harvard. The recently completed saxagliptin outcome study (SAVOR-TIMI 53) included approx. 16,500 patients, 800 centers/sites, in 30 various countries around the world and the currently ongoing DECLARE Study is being conducted on more than 17,000 patients worldwide - a multicenter trial to evaluate the effect of Dapagliflozin on the Incidence of Cardiovascular Events (DECLARE-TIMI58). In addition, he is involved with several renal outcome studies in patients with and without diabetes of new novel drugs.

Prof. Raz holds various editorial board positions in 8 diabetes-related international journals. In addition, he is an active reviewer for several journals. He has 350 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is co-editor of 4 biennial publications of a Diabetes Care Supplement summarizing proceedings of the European Controversies to Consensus in Obesity, Diabetes, and Hypertension (CODHy) meetings which he has organized over the past 10 years. Prof. Raz has chaired and been a featured speaker at multiple lectures and presentations both nationally and internationally
EVENTS & ACTIVITIES (Speaking, Spoken, and Authored)