Prof. Florin Grigorescu

Professor Florin Grigorescu is the leader of an international endocrine genetics team and an Honorary Professor at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" Romania. He completed his PhD in Montpellier, followed by postdoctoral studies at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard University, Boston, and served as an INSERM Research Fellow. He is best known for purifying the insulin receptor in human erythrocytes and identifying tyrosine-kinase defects in cases of extreme insulin resistance (with acanthosis nigricans). During his tenure as an INSERM Research Fellow (1986-2019), he contributed to the understanding of insulin's molecular mechanism of action, the discovery of the first known IGF-1 mutation responsible for growth disorders, and the identification of numerous genetic defects in the Alström and Berardinelli-Seip syndromes, as well as polycystic ovary syndrome. Afterwards, he served as a Scientific Editor at the Cancer Institute in Montpellier, France, and as a member of the Institute of Migration at the Collège de France, Paris. In 1986, he was awarded the G.B. Morgagni Award (Padova University), and in 2011, he received the Medicine Academy Award for his contributions to the study of the genetics of complex diseases (diabetes mellitus, polycystic ovary syndrome, metabolic syndrome). He coordinated MEDIGENE, a European program that studied metabolic syndrome in Mediterranean populations, which was awarded the "Etoiles de l'Europe" prize in 2017.