A lifetime of diabetes discoveries: Dr. Bernard Zinman is inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

Decades earlier, his work on intensive insulin therapy had already rewritten the standard of care for type 1 diabetes. Behind both results was a researcher who never stopped asking hard questions. 

This year, Dr. Zinman, emeritus investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI), part of Sinai Health, and emeritus professor at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, has been inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. The recognition crowns his four-decade-long career dedicated to understanding, treating, and transforming the management of diabetes.  

The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, founded in 1994, honours Canadians whose work has significantly contributed to the understanding of disease and improvement of human health. The induction ceremony took place last night in Calgary, Alberta.  

After completing medical school and training in internal medicine at McGill University, Dr. Zinman completed further training in endocrinology at the University of Toronto.  

He joined Mount Sinai Hospital in 1990 and, a decade later, founded and became the inaugural director of the Leadership Sinai Centre for Diabetes, one of Ontario’s premier diabetes research and clinical care centres. Throughout his career, he has been a clinician scientist at the LTRI, where his work has shaped both the science and clinical practice of diabetes care at Sinai Health and far beyond.  

Dr. Zinman’s influence on diabetes care has been profound and far-reaching. In the 1970s and 80s, a fundamental question in diabetes care was still left unanswered: could stricter glucose monitoring by physicians improve or prevent the complications of the disease? 

Landmark trials that changed practice around the world

Dr. Zinman would go on to play a major role in the landmark Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT). This trial proved that intensive glucose management — where blood sugar levels are kept as close to normal as possible through frequent monitoring and multiple daily insulin injections or use of an insulin pump could dramatically reduce the risk of blindness, kidney failure, and nerve damage in people living with type 1 diabetes. The trial effectively rewrote the standard of care for the disease ever since.

Dr. Zinman’s commitment to improving diabetes outcomes also extended into some of Canada’s most underserved communities. Working alongside colleagues, Dr. Zinman investigated the profound impact of type 2 diabetes on the Indigenous community of Sandy Lake, in northwestern Ontario. Those findings helped shape culturally relevant intervention programs designed to address the disproportionately high rates of the disease within the community.  

Then came the EMPA-REG trial, a first-of-its-kind long-term clinical trial involving more than 7,000 adults with type 2 diabetes across 42 countries. Dr. Zinman and his collaborators demonstrated that empagliflozin, a drug that helps the body eliminate excess sugar through urine, was doing far more than controlling blood sugar. It reduced cardiovascular death, heart-failure hospitalizations, and all-cause mortality by more than 30 per cent, and also reduced kidney disease. The implications of this study were immediate and sweeping. For the first time, a diabetes therapy had been shown to also protect the heart, shifting how type 2 diabetes is managed around the world.  

Alongside these landmark studies, Dr. Zinman has published more than 500 articles that have been cited more than 140,000 times and is among the top one per cent most cited researchers globally, according to the science publishing data company, Clarivate. In 2019, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of his scientific contributions, including the development of preventative therapies for diabetes. 

Throughout his career, Dr. Zinman has mentored generations of Canadian scientists and clinicians, including Drs. Caroline Kramer, Bruce Perkins and Ravi Retnakaran, all endocrinologists and clinician scientists at Sinai Health today.  

Dr. Zinman’s induction is not only a recognition of scientific excellence but also of what that excellence has meant for millions of people living with diabetes around the world.

"Dr. Zinman’s induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame is a celebration of what research at its best can look like — rigorous, collaborative and in service of patients’ health,” said Dr. Anne-Claude Gingras, LTRI Director and Vice President, Research, Sinai Health. “His work has not only transformed the treatment of diabetes around the world but has shaped generations of scientists and clinicians here at LTRI and Sinai Health. We are incredibly proud of this richly deserved recognition and of his lasting contribution to Sinai Health and beyond.”