The Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group of North America (DPSG-NA) was founded in 1997 by a small group of Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialists with a distinct interest in diabetes in pregnancy.
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Since its inception, the DPSG-NA meetings have become a vehicle for the dissemination of data, gathered through collaboration among basic, translational and clinical researchers and care centers. After a few annual meetings, the group settled on a biennial cadence.Â
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Only through a collaborative, multi-faceted approach can we ever hope to overcome the health burden and devastation that pregnancies complicated by diabetes can bring to a family.
Founders
Oded Langer
Co-Founder
Oded Langer (1943-2019) was and continues to be internationally recognized for his outstanding contributions to the field of diabetes and pregnancy.
He dedicated his 40-year career to promoting the translation of promising research findings into better clinical care for pregnant women and their children.
His efforts to promote translational medicine include demonstrating that oral anti-hyperglycemic agents are safe and effective for managing diabetes in pregnancy; increasing our understanding the potential complications of diabetes for both mother and fetus; and helping to delineate the associations between levels of maternal hyperglycemia and adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Dr. Langer contributed extensively to the literature in obstetrics, gynecology, and high-risk pregnancy through his extensive number of publications in both journals and textbooks. He was co-editor of four textbooks on diabetes and pregnancy and several journals focused on the topic. He also has served on a variety of journal editorial boards in this field.
Dr. Langer was an invited presenter of the Norbert Freikel Lecture for the American Diabetes Association, named the prestigious Donnell D. Etzwiler Professorship, which is named after the late ADA president and former co-director of World Health Organization Collaborative Centers for Diabetes Education and Translation, recipient of the Andre Boivin Visiting Professorship at the Motherisk Program of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, received the Award of Research Excellence from the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine on multiple occasions and was repeatedly recognized as “teacher of the year” for residents’ instruction at both Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where he previously taught and conducted research.Â
Menachem Miodovnik
Co-Founder
Menachem Miodovnik (1946-2025) was an enthusiastic and larger-than-life presence in maternal-fetal medicine.
For nearly two decades, Miodovnik oversaw research funded by a National Institute of Child Health and Development program project grant at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center (UCMC) and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) that showed that strict preconception glucose control could reduce reproductive failure, abortion, fetal malformations and maternal and neonatal morbidity, but many resulted in increased maternal hypoglycemia. His work resulted in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications on how to improve maternal and fetal outcomes for pregnancies complicated by diabetes.
In addition to research, Miodovnik was a dedicated educator and mentor, who dedicated hundreds of hours as course director and instructor in local, regional, national and international conferences, also serving on a number of leadership and organizing committees. He was a keen proponent of bringing together professionals across fields, specialties, and disciplines to discuss and promote further research to improve the health and wellbeing of pregnant individuals with diabetes as broadly defined by type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes, and cardiometabolic health risk factors, and their offspring.
He has been recognized by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Nutrition, the National Perinatal Association, the American Association of Birth Centers, and the organization he helped found, the Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group of North America.
E. Albert Reece
Co-Founder
E. Albert Reece is an ob/gyn physician-basic scientist and former Dean of Medicine and University Executive Vice President at University of Maryland, Baltimore.
He is senior scientist in the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Birth Defects Research where he remains involved in exploring the biomolecular mechanisms of birth defects, specifically the teratogenicity of hyperglycemia associated with unmanaged diabetes mellitus.
Over the last 40 years, he and his research colleagues have identified several potential targets around which to design therapies.
He remains intimately involved in DPSG-NA, engaged in conference programming and ensuring the group’s longevity.
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