Professor Edward Kraegen

Professor Ted Kraegen joined Garvan as a PhD student in 1967, and has played a central role in the development of both the Institute and its world class Diabetes and Metabolism Division. Ted’s early work involved creating an artificial pancreas (which initially took up half a room).

The author of over 170 academic papers, Ted cites his proudest achievement as his part in discovery that abnormal fat metabolism was the major cause of defective insulin action in diabetes and obesity. This finding was based on numerous highly cited publications produced over the period 1985-1991.

Nowadays Ted’s work focuses on trying to understand the enzyme that controls whether fat is used or stored once it enters the muscle cell. He has partnerships with a number of pharmaceutical companies to examine drugs that activate this enzyme and which could reduce fat accumulation.