Prof. Lernmark, born in 1945, a Swedish national, received his Doctor of Medicine (Ph.D.) from the University of Umea, Umea, Sweden in 1972. He was appointed associate professor in Histology in 1972 and has since held faculty positions at the University of Chicago (1974-75, 1977-78), the University of Lund, Lund, Sweden (1980-91), and the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden (1993-1994) where he was Professor of Experimental Endocrinology.

In 1979-1987 he was Director of Research at the Hagedorn Research Laboratory, Gentofte, Denmark. He was appointed as the first holder of the Robert H. Williams Endowed Chair and Professor of Medicine in 1988 and has been Adjunct Professor of Immunology since 1995. Since 1998 he is also Adjunct Professor in Experimental Diabetes at the University of Lund, Lund, Sweden.

 

Dr. Lernmark has served on numerous boards, review panels and expert committees on diabetes and diabetes reserach. He was the Honorary Secretary of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD, 1985-88), a founding member of the Immunology of Diabetes Society (President 1996-98), and the founding chair of the Human Biological Data Interchange (HBDI, 1988-2001),  and has organized international conferences on type 1 diabetes for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International and the National Institutes of Health. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (1989) and to the American Association of Physicians (1992). Dr. Lernmark has received several awards and honorary lectureships such as the Minkowski Award, David Rumbough Award, Kellion Medal, Paul E. Lacy Award, J.E. Poulsen Grant, David Pyke Professor, Dorothy Hodgkin Lecturer, J.K. Davidson Professorship and the J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine. Dr. Lernmark has published more than 300 scientific papers and some 200 book chapters, invited reviews and editorials. His contributions to the science of diabetes and diabetes research are mainly to the understanding of autoimmune insulin dependent diabetes or Type 1 diabetes and development of novel approaches to treat this serious human autoimmune disease. Dr.Lernmark's research on the autoantigens in type 1 diabetes and the discovery of glutamic acid decarboxylase have resulted in novel approaches to detect subjects at risk for type 1 diabetes, classifying patients with type 2 diabetes for autoimmune diabetes if they have GAD65 autoantibodies, and finally has resulted in phase II clinical trials with testing GAD65 as a vaccine to prevent further beta destruction. Prof. Lernmark's research has been well recognized by the peers and his research has been funded by the National Institute of Health since 1979.

 

All these contributions of Prof. Lernmark demonstrate a research endeavor form bench to bedside to benefit mankind. Prof. Lernmark highly deserves, for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune disease combining studies in man with that in experimental animals, the Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence.