Dr. Carlos Alberto Aguilar Salinas is a Medical Surgeon from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1980-1986), specializing in Internal Medicine (1986-1989) and Endocrinology (1989-1991) from the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition (INCMNSZ), and holds a Doctorate in Medical Research from the National Polytechnic Institute. He conducted research stay (1992-1994) at Washington University, School of Medicine (St Louis MO, USA) on the study of lipoprotein metabolism. He was a visiting professor at the same institution in the year 2000. During these years, his work contributed knowledge on the mechanisms explaining plasma cholesterol levels in patients with mutations in the apolipoprotein B gene, nephrotic syndrome, and familial combined hyperlipidemia. He has been an F-level researcher at the National Institutes of Health since 2005 and a level III member of the National System of Researchers since 2008. From 1996 to 2017, he served as Deputy Head of the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at INCMNSZ, and since 2017, he has been the Director-Founder of the Metabolic Diseases Research Unit at the institute. The central focus of his career has been clinical research in metabolic diseases of national importance such as diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemias. He has published over 400 articles in indexed journals, received 51,500 citations, with an h-index of 80.
Among his contributions to knowledge are:
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Identification of new genetic variants involved in type 2 diabetes in Mexican mestizos.
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Identification of new genetic variants associated with dyslipidemias in Mexican mestizos.
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Identification of early-onset type 2 diabetes as a health problem.
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Creation of cohort studies that have served to develop predictive models of diabetes incidence based on clinical and metabolomic data, new methods to estimate insulin action, and new questionnaires for diabetes screening.
His major academic contributions include:
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Creation of the "Dyslipidemia Clinic" at INCMNSZ: It provides specialized care to nearly 2000 individuals. It is a national reference center.
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Implementation of the Metabolic Diseases Research Unit (UIEM) at INCMNSZ and the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education: Founded in 2017, UIEM is a service unit for clinical researchers; it has state-of-the-art technology for the study of obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic diseases.
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Coordinator of the task force group of the National Academy of Medicine to mitigate the social impact of diabetes in Mexico (2016).
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Member of the Lancet Commission for Diabetes (2017-2019). He is co-editor of the Journal of the Latin American Diabetes Association. Under his management, the journal was indexed in Latindex. Also, he is on the editorial board of journals such as Metabolism, Atherosclerosis, and others.
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He is the author or editor of 8 books ("Dyslipidemias: From Clinical to Molecular" and "Manual of Medical Therapeutics and Emergency Procedures of the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition" among others).
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He was coordinator of the Ethics Committee of INCMNSZ from 2012 to 2013.
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He has been coordinator of the Research Committee since 2013.
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He has been a tutor to numerous master's and doctoral students in medical sciences; he has received sponsorship for his studies from CONACYT, foreign foundations (European Association for the Study of Diabetes, among others), and the National Institutes of Health of the United States.
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He was awarded the National Sciences Prize in 2018 and appointed Director of Research at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubirán in 2023.
Dr. Aguilar Salinas has made original contributions on the pathophysiology, treatment, and actions for the control of type 2 diabetes and dyslipidemias in Mexico.