Noted Italian surgeon, Francesco Rubino, MD (born in Cosenza, Italy), who is Chief of Gastrointestinal Metabolic Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, was chosen by Crains New York as one of the city’s top leaders under the age of 40. Crains selected the top 40 leaders under the age of 40 in 2009, culled from thousands of nominations of rising stars in the corporate world, non-profit, medicine, education and the arts.

This honor recognizes the unique contribution Dr. Rubino has made as a pioneering authority in the emerging new specialty of surgery for type 2 diabetes, which holds great promise for diabetics-- for the first time, bringing diabetes type 2 into long term remission. Dr. Rubino is Director of the Diabetes Surgery Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center, the first academic-based Center in the country and worldwide. The Diabetes Surgery Center is a leading international Center for clinical investigations on the use of metabolic surgery to treat diabetes, including in patients who are not obese enough to qualify for bariatric surgery. Under the leadership of Dr. Rubino, the hospital is the first to offer a dedicated and highly specialized approach to surgical treatment of type 2 diabetes both in obese and non obese patients. The section of Gastrointestinal Metabolic Surgery also offers comprehensive treatment approaches to a full range of metabolic diseases and conditions often associated to severe obesity, including hypertension, high cholesterol, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and obstructive sleep apnea.

Dr. Rubino is an internationally recognized leader in the research, teaching and practice of metabolic and weight-loss surgery. His innovative surgical approaches hold enormous promise for the millions in America and worldwide living with obesity and diabetes. Dr. Rubino has advanced diabetes surgery as an entirely new surgical field, one in which gastrointestinal operations can be performed to directly treat diabetes, not just as a byproduct of weight-loss surgery. He is the proponent of a novel surgical procedure specifically designed to treat type 2 diabetes as well as of an innovative theory about the origin of diabetes that points to the gastrointestinal tract as a possible site for the root causes of the disease.

Dr. Rubino recently provided strong leadership as Congress Director and organizer of the 1st World Congress on Interventional Therapies for Type 2 Diabetes in New York City, in September, 2008. The World Congress brought together, for the first time over 1,000 multidisciplinary diabetes experts from 46 countries, including surgeons, endocrinologists, policy makers, insurers and health care leaders to reach a consensus on the best candidates for the surgical treatment of diabetes. The distinguished faculty of this unique forum included over 80 world-renowned experts in virtually every aspect of diabetes treatment, obesity, surgery, nutrition and health policy.
In March, 2007, Dr. Rubino organized an international consensus conference, the Diabetes Surgery Summit, which was held in Rome, Italy. At this historical scientific event, a multidisciplinary team of world experts in endocrinology and gastrointestinal physiology recognized that metabolic surgery could represent a valid alternative option for selected patients with diabetes.

Dr. Franceso Rubino's unique expertise in diabetes surgery has been recognized in articles by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC-TV Nightly News, BBC, CBS-60 Minutes, US News & World, and many other publications both in the United States and abroad.

For more information on Dr. Rubino and his diabetes surgery, visit his website at http://www.weillcornell.org/frrubino/index.html

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, located at 525 E. 68th Street, in New York City, is one of the leading academic medical centers in the world, comprising the teaching hospital NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical College, the medical school of Cornell University. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine, and is committed to excellence in patient care, education, research and community service. Weill Cornell physician-scientists have been responsible for many medical advances — from the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer to the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial for gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease, the first indication of bone marrow’s critical role in tumor growth, and, most recently, the world’s first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. NewYork-Presbyterian, which is ranked sixth in the country and ranked #1 in New York on the U.S.News & World Report list of top hospitals.