Prof Michel Polak is a full professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Paris Descartes University and Head and Staff Physician in Paediatric Endocrinology, Gynaecology and Diabetology at L’Hôpital Necker – Enfants Malades in Paris, France, positions he has held since 2002. He is a member of the INSERM (National Institute for Health and Medical Research) U1016 team and the IMAGINE genetics institute at L’Hôpital Necker.

His fields of special interest comprise growth disorders and their treatment, disorders of sex development, perinatal endocrinology, developmental biology, endoderm-derived endocrine organ development (thyroid and pancreas) and their diseases, type 1 diabetes mellitus and monogenic diabetes in young children.

His training took place in Paris and during postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of Genetics and Microbiology at the Centre Médical Universitaire in Geneva in 1997 and at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Neurobiology (with Prof David Potter) and the Section of Immunology and Immunogenetics, Elliot P. Joslin Research Laboratory (with Prof George Eisenbarth) at the Joslin Diabetes Center, in Boston, USA, from 1989 to 1991.