George Eisenbarth, MD, PhD, Executive Director of the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes at the University of Colorado (CU) Anschutz Medical Campus, died in November 2012 at age 65. A pioneering diabetes researcher, Dr. Eisenbarth’s research led to the recognition of Type 1 diabetes as an immune system disorder. His work reshaped the approach for developing treatments and a vaccine or cure for the disorder. Along with his colleagues, Dr. Eisenbarth helped develop tests to identify individuals most susceptible to diabetes as well as treatments to prevent complications from the disorder.
Dr. Eisenbarth earned his PhD (1974) and MD (1975) at Duke University Medical School. He completed a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he worked with Nobel Laureate, Marshall Nirenberg, PhD. He returned to Duke as a member of the faculty and was recruited to Joslin Diabetes Center in 1982. During his tenure at Joslin, he conducted seminal studies that demonstrated the autoimmune nature of type I diabetes mellitus. He joined the CU School of Medicine in Denver in 1992 and is credited with shaping the international prominence of the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes.
Dr. Eisenbarth received numerous honors and awards for his work, including the 2009 Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement Award and the 2012 Albert Renold Award of the American Diabetes Association. He was a co-recipient of the 2006 Pasteur-Weizmann/Servier International Prize, awarded for research in “autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes”. At a recent memorial service at the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado Denver, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) announced a new award in his honor: The JDRF George Eisenbarth Award for Type 1 Diabetes Prevention. The award will recognize outstanding research advances in the prevention of type 1 diabetes.
Philip E.S. Palmer
Dr. Philip E. S. Palmer, emeritus professor of radiology and the inaugural director of diagnostic radiology at the University of California (UC) Davis School of Medicine, died on Jan. 3 at age 91. A clinical radiologist, much of Dr. Palmer’s research focused on the design and development of radiology equipment and departments, and he is internationally recognized for his efforts to make radiology available in populations of the developing world.
A native of London, England, Dr. Palmer began his medical studies at London University (Westminster Hospital) shortly after World War II began, and he served as a stretcher-bearer and ambulance driver for the London Ambulance Service during the London air raids. He graduated in April 1944 and became a house surgeon at the Westminster, where he eventually became the Westminster Hospital’s senior medical officer, registrar and first surgical assistant in the Radiotherapy Department. His work there led to his qualifications in radiation therapy from the London Royal Colleges and in medical radiology from the University of London. His subsequent degrees include the Fellowship of the Royal College of Radiologists of London and membership (later elected Fellow) in the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in General Medicine. He successfully completed his U.S. National Boards in Medicine in 1976 and was awarded the MD (honoris causae) in 2004 by the University of Turgu Mures in Romania.
In his early career, Dr. Palmer worked with his father in a large, rural general practice in Cornwall and also served as a consultant radiologist at several local hospitals. As a consultant radiologist, he provided radiology services in locations where none had previously existed. With the establishment of the British National Health Service, Dr. Palmer chose to pursue radiology rather than general practice. He moved with his family to Bulawayo, Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1954, introducing new radiology techniques and technology to the region. He served on two committees of the International Union for Cancer Research: Haemangiosarcoma of Kaposi and Cancer of the Alimentary Tract in Africa. He was named a lifetime honorary consultant of the South African Institute of Medical Research and, in 1962, he organized the first international conference of radiology in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Palmer became chair of the Department of Radiology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 1964. During his tenure there, he reorganized and re-equipped the radiology departments of the university’s hospitals, revamped the postgraduate radiology training program, and served as examiner for the radiology degrees at three universities. He joined the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Hospital in Philadelphia in 1968 as professor of radiology. He was a sought after international speaker. He regularly delivered lectures at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC, and in 1969 he gave the inaugural address at the Holmes Society, University of Toronto, Canada.
Dr. Palmer joined UC Davis School of Medicine in 1970 as the first professor of diagnostic radiology and director of diagnostic radiology at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. He earned numerous honors and awards during his career, including the Honeyman-Gillespie Lecture at the University of Edinburgh (1968) and the Henry Garland Lecture of the California Radiological Society (1973). He received the Clinical Teaching Award of the UC Davis School of Medicine in 1982 and a teaching award from the Department of Medicine in 1987. He was awarded the Roentgen Medal of the German Radiological Society in 1993 and received the Presidential Award of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) the following year. He was the inaugural recipient of the Antoine Béclère Medal and gave the first Béclère Lecture of the International Society of Radiology in China in 1996.
Dr. Palmer was a founding member of the International Skeletal Society, a member of the British Institute of Radiology and the British Medical Association, an Honorary Fellow or member of the radiological societies of West Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Romania and the Yugoslavia Society of Ultrasound. He served as a consultant and advisor to the World Health Organization for three decades and his work shaped the development of radiology worldwide.