Dr. Debbie C. Thurmond is the new Director of the Arthur Riggs Diabetes and Metabolism Research Institute at City of Hope. She completed her Ph.D. studies in Biochemistry at the University of Iowa, and her awards include the Trailblazer in Research Award from Indiana University in 2010 and her endowed chairship in 2017. She maintains a highly-funded research program and is an internationally awarded scholar serving on acclaimed advisory panels in the fields of diabetes and obesity research. She currently serves as Chair of the NIH study section Basic Mechanisms of Diabetes and Metabolism (BMDM), as well as on multiple other Editorial boards and national/international grant review panels. Her team’s research focus encompasses investigations into SNARE-mediated vesicle trafficking events and cytoskeletal signaling as they pertain to the causes of diabetes. Her group has discovered that diabetic individuals harbor defects and deficiencies in certain vesicle trafficking proteins, and is actively engaged in devising strategies to remediate these defects.