Lawrence Blonde, MD, FACP, MACE, who has been a staff physician at Ochsner since 1974, graduated from Albany Medical College in Albany, New York, where he also completed his internal medicine internship and residency and endocrinology fellowship. He is board-certified in internal medicine, nuclear medicine and endocrinology. Dr. Blondes clinical and research activities focus on people with diabetes mellitus and investigations of new therapies and healthcare delivery systems for those patients. He is presently director of the Ochsner Diabetes Clinical Research Unit in the Frank Riddick Diabetes Institute, Department of Endocrinology, at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans. He is a former chair of the Ochsner department of endocrinology. Dr. Blonde has served as a principal or sub-investigator for numerous clinical research trials involving many of the new classes of antihyperglycemic agents for treatment of people with diabetes. He was the overall coordinating and/or signatory investigator and lead author of the reports of the TITRATE Trial (Blonde, L. et al. Diabetes Obes Metab. 2009 Jun; 11(6):623-31.) the AWARD-4 Trial (Blonde, L., et al. (2015). Lancet 385(9982): 2057-2066.), the LIRA-ADD2SGLT2i Trial [Blonde, L., et al. Diabetes Obes Metab. 2020 Jun;22(6):929-937,], the LixiLan-G Randomized Clinical Trial. Diabetes Care 2019 42(11): 2108-2116 and the LixiLan-G Extension Study. Blonde, L., et al. (2021). Diabetes Care 44(3): 774-780. Dr. Blonde was a co-author of the 2020 American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists [AACE]/American College of Endocrinology [ACE] Comprehensive Type 2 Diabetes Management Algorithm. In May of 2016, he received the Master of the American College of Endocrinology (MACE) Award. Dr. Blonde is a past chair of the Steering Committee of the National Diabetes Education Program and the American Diabetes Association [ADA] Professional Practice Committee, as well as a past member of both the ADA and AACE board of directors. He is presently an associate editor for the journal Diabetes Care.