We are excited to announce that the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and Dr. Bryan Layden has received a philanthropic gift from one of the University of Illinois College of Medicine most accomplished medical school alumni, Dr. Lester Salans.
Dr. Salans is internationally recognized in the fields of diabetes mellitus, obesity and endocrinology. He has held faculty, executive and administrative leadership roles in academic health centers, government and the pharmaceutical industry. He received his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, postdoctoral fellowship in Endocrinology and Metabolism at Stanford and The Rockefeller University.
He was Professor of Medicine at the Mt. Sinai Medical School and Hospital, and Dean of the Medical School. In 1975, Dr. Salans was selected to lead the congressionally mandated National Long-Range Plan to Combat Diabetes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and he helped establish several innovative national programs including the Diabetes Research and Education Centers of Excellence, the National Diabetes Information and Education Clearinghouse, and the National Diabetes Data Group. Dr. Salans was also instrumental in conceiving, planning and enabling the landmark Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT).
Dr. Salans is perhaps best recognized as the Director of the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, Digestive Diseases and Kidney Diseases (NIADDK) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he led the country’s health related biomedical research on some of the most common and serious diseases affecting the health of our citizens.
In 2016, the University of Illinois College of Medicine honored Dr. Salans with the Distinguished Alumnus Award in recognition of his influential career. The Division and Dr. Layden would like to thank him for his kind gift which will be used as research support in the Division.
