Klaus H. Kaestner, Ph.D., M.S. is the Suor Butterworth Professor of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Associate Director of Penn’s Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism as well as Penn’s prestigious NIH-funded Diabetes Research Center. Since 2016, Dr. Kaestner has been Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Human Pancreas Analysis Program for Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), which was selected as the sole US center to direct and coordinate the deep phenotyping of the human endocrine pancreas to better understand the cellular and molecular events that precede and lead to beta-cell loss and/or dysfunction in T1D. Because of the success of the program, and the world-wide usage of its unique datasets, the NIH has renewed and expanded it twice. Dr. Kaestner’s work groundbreaking work is focused on the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of beta-cell mass expansion and glucose homeostasis. In addition, his laboratory has pioneered the development of functional genomics tools applicable to the study of the human endocrine pancreas. Dr. Kaestner has lectured around the world and has served as Associate Editor for Diabetes and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He has received an NIH MERIT award in 2012, the Roy O. Greep Award for Outstanding Research, the Endocrine Society in 2017, and the Albert Renold Prize from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in 2026 in recognition for his contribution to our understanding of the endocrine pancreas and T1D.