Barbara Kahn, M.D.

Barbara B. Kahn is an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, vice chair for research strategy in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the George Richards Minot Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is an internationally recognized scientist in the area of obesity and type 2 diabetes, and her lab investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying these conditions, including the regulation of insulin sensitivity, adipocyte biology, and intertissue communication.

Kahn received B.A. and M.D. degrees from Stanford University and an M.S. in Health Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley. After completing internal medicine training and a general medicine fellowship at the UC Davis Medical Center, she began her career in molecular research at the National Institutes of Health where she also completed a clinical endocrine fellowship. She has served as chief of the Diabetes Unit and chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She currently serves on the advisory council for the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases, and has served on the scientific advisory boards of several large pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Kahn is widely lauded for her pioneering research elucidating the molecular, cellular, and physiologic processes that link obesity with diabetes. Kahn has received numerous awards including the American Diabetes Association’s Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award, Mosenthal Award, and the Banting Medal, the highest award for scientific achievement in the diabetes field. She also received the H. C. Jacobaeus Prize from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Karolinska Institutet; the Charles H. Best Award from the University of Toronto; and the Gerald D. Aurbach Award from the Endocrine Society. Kahn is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2019 Kahn will receive the Excellence in Science Award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the nation’s largest association of biological and biomedical researchers. US News and World Report has ranked Kahn in the top one percent of physicians nationwide in endocrinology and metabolism.