"When I was offered the visiting professorship of DDA, I realized this was my lifetime wish coming true. I had always wanted to interact with Danish diabetes scientists. I already had collaboration with Prof Allan Vaag for a GDM study. I was lucky to be hosted by Prof Henning Beck-Nielsen, whom I had admired for 30 years. He introduced me to Dorte Møller Jensen and she connected me with a number of people interested in diabetes, pregnancy and different aspects of fetal programming of diabetes.

The list is impressive: Copenhagen: Prof Torben Hansen, Prof Henrik Vestergaard, Dr Manimoyzan Arumugam; Odense: Dr Jens Steen Nielsen and the DD2 team, Dr Christina Vinter, Dr Mette Tanvig, Dr Marianne Andersen, Prof Ellen Aagaard Nøhr, and Dr Morten Andersen.

I had a grand reception at the Summer School of the DDA in the beautiful surroundings of Hotel Sinatur, both at GI Avernaes and Nyborg. The DDA staff arranged a beautiful apartment for me in Odense for the summer of 2017, and I had a most productive time away from my daily routine at home without the worries of patient management and administrative responsibilities.

After discussions with the Danish scientists I put together plans for a range of comparative analyses between Indian and Danish data. This will give an insight, which can come only by comparing very contrasting populations, some are already obvious:

1. We have found very interesting contrast between Indian and Danish type 2 diabetes patients, who were diagnosed relatively young (before 45 years of age), this will give an insight into etiology of early onset hyperglycemia in these two populations.
2. We have been able to confirm very dramatic differences in the pregnancy glucose-insulin metabolism in Indian and Danish women with different body weight, which will help understand the etiology of both SGA and LGA, the two major problems of fetal growth, which are associated with fetal programming of adiposity and diabetes.
3. We have developed plans for a comparative microbiota of vit B12 deficiency in these two populations with very different prevalence of this condition, 4) we have planned a genetic comparison of diabetic and non-diabetic individuals from India and Denmark for the differences in their body composition.
4. We have shown in a very unique dataset from Guinea Bissau that twins have a thin-fat body composition, which expands the biology of fetal growth by supporting the ideas developed in India.

I look forward to my stay and interactions in Denmark during the summer of 2018 to expand the work which we have started. I am sure it will lead to more visits and collaborations and set the stage for Indian and Danish students and scientists to pursue interesting research, which will help strengthen scientific collaboration between the two countries."

Professor Chittaranjan Yajnik, KEM Hospital Research Centre, Pune, India