Rate My Professor Rami Kanaan

Rami Kanaan, MBiomedSc, is associated with the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand. His academic work at the University of Otago includes a 2022 Master of Biomedical Sciences thesis focused on the application of next-generation sequencing data to help characterise clear cell renal cell carcinoma, a prevalent form of kidney cancer. This research examined the utility of next-generation sequencing in tumor characterisation.

Prior to his master's degree, Kanaan completed a 2018 postgraduate project titled 'Development of a local protocol and method to measure Beta-Cell Function in individuals with Pre-diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes,' supervised by Jeremy Krebs and Patricia Whitfield. More recently, he co-authored the 2024 publication 'A very-low-calorie diet (VLCD) intervention for the management of prediabetes and early Type 2 diabetes mellitus in a multi-ethnic cohort in Aotearoa New Zealand: The PROGRESS NZ feasibility study' in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition (33(2):200-212). In this feasibility study, 15 multi-ethnic New Zealand men with prediabetes or early type 2 diabetes followed a VLCD until 10% weight loss. Nine completers showed mean HbA1c reduction of 4.8 mmol/mol, with five reverting to normoglycaemia; mean weight loss of 12.0 kg; improved whole-body glucose disposal by 1.5 mg/kg FFM/min; and significant improvements in blood pressure and fasting triglycerides. The intervention was highly tolerable and culturally acceptable. Funding was provided by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC 17/542), the New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes (2016 NZSSD NZMS Medical Technology Grant), and the University of Otago Research Grant 2017.