Global CRO Icon has appointed Dr. Dariush Elahi director of metabolic research. Based in Icon’s Clinical Pharmacology Unit in San Antonio, U.S., Elahi will lead Icon’s early phase glucose clamping programs globally, providing expert, scientific consultation to sponsors who are developing therapeutic agents to treat endocrine/metabolic disease.

Elahi is a clinical physiologist with over 30 years of research experience, predominantly focused on translational investigations of the regulation of glucose homeostasis in states of glucose tolerance and intolerance. His research has included the study of volunteers with “normal” glucose tolerance, obesity, type II diabetes mellitus and aged volunteers with varying degrees of insulin resistance and beta cell dysfunction. Elahi is an expert with respect to the methodologies used to conduct these types of investigations, including various clamp techniques (Hyperinsulinemic / Euglycemic, Time-Action Profile, Hyperglycemic, Hypoglycemic, Pancreatic), the MinMod technique, as well as measurements of relevant hormones byRIA and ELISA. His experience includes kinetics analyses of fuel substrates using both stable and radioactive tracers and the employment of these techniques during clamp studies.

Elahi has authored 147 scientific publications and is nationally and internationally recognized for his work on the role of insulin. He has received academic appointments as a professor at several institutions, including The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.  He also was research physiologist and senior staff fellow at the NIH and National Institutes on Aging.