Prof. Tali Cukierman-Yaffe

Prof. Tali Cukierman-Yaffe is an endocrinologist and a clinical epidemiologist. A senior physician in the Endocrinology Institute, the Head of the Centre for Successful Aging with Diabetes at the Sheba Medical Center, Head of the Endocrinology & Diabetes Service for women and pregnancy, and an Associate Professor at the Department of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and a member of the Herczeg institute on Aging. She is also a PHRI (Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University, Canada) senior international fellow.

The Center for Successful Aging with Diabetes research areas covers the effect of diabetes’ pharmacological agents on cognitive dysfunction and sarcopenia. These include the effect of hyperglycemia on the risk of falls and other geriatric adverse symptoms, technological solutions for the assessment of physical capacity and cognitive function in older people with diabetes, and risk and protective factors for cognitive impairment and physical disability in older people with diabetes

The focus of Prof. Cukierman-Yaffe’s research is the relationship between diabetes and cognitive dysfunction and the challenges of treating diabetes in older age. She is part of working groups writing local and international guidelines on this topic and is an invited advisor in forums dealing with this subject. She was the PI of the cognitive sub-study of the ORIGIN trial, a co-investigator of the ACCORD-MIND study and took a key role in the cognitive sub-study of the REWIND trial that tested the cognitive safety and efficacy of Dulaglutide in people with diabetes. In the last several years her research has also been focused on finding technological solutions to improve the care of older people with diabetes and understanding of the role of hyperglycemia on geriatric adverse outcomes (frailty, falls, etc.). She is the Principal Investigator of a EFSD-funded study aimed at developing a technological solutions for the replacement of traditional physical capacity assessments for older people with diabetes and another study aimed at developing a digital Digit Substitution Test (DSS) cognitive assessment tool.