She will be honored Aug. 17 during the TNAAP Excellence in Pediatrics Annual Awards, which recognize pediatricians and community members who have made exceptional contributions to children’s health advocacy in Tennessee.

After 47 years as a pediatric endocrinologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Jennifer Najjar is reflecting on her life of work, highlighting moments of pride and gratitude for her patients and colleagues, and relishing in her ability to practice medicine while also training the next generation of pediatric doctors.

The study findings, published in the journal Diabetes Care, suggest that pancreas imaging can have a benefit in tracking disease development and recruitment for preventive and therapeutic trials.

A Vanderbilt study of a treatment to delay the development of Type 1 diabetes in individuals at high risk did not meet the study goals of delaying progression from normal glucose tolerance to abnormal glucose tolerance or clinical diagnosis, although the study drug, abatacept, impacted immune response and preserved insulin production during the one-year treatment period.

A study of one family from Alabama has led Vanderbilt researchers to discover that insulin deficiency, independent of the autoimmunity associated with Type 1 diabetes, is the principal factor leading to a markedly smaller pancreas.

Three physicians in the Vanderbilt Department of Pediatrics have been elected to the American Pediatric Society.

Vanderbilt is one of 16 North American sites conducting the Tolerance Using Plasmid in People with Type 1 Diabetes (TOPPLE) study, a phase 1 investigation that tests the safety and dosing of a new plasmid therapy.