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USF Fills New Endowed Chair In Diabetes Research

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By ADAM EMERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 1, 2008

Aiming to capitalize on its success in its fight against diabetes, the University of South Florida named one of its prominent professors to its new $1.4 million endowed chair in diabetes research.

Jeffrey Krischer, who has brought the university nearly $400 million to study the cause and find the cure for Type 1 diabetes, will lead the initiative, which university leaders hope will generate more private donations.

The endowed chair is the first step in a plan meant to propel the work Krischer has started. The university has begun work on launching a clinical research center in its health complex on the north end of campus in which scientists will not only study what happens to diabetes sufferers but also will provide clinical care.

In the coming years, the university also wants to open an outpatient clinic and a research hospital.

Krischer, a Harvard-trained researcher who works with his team out of USF, has been orchestrating nearly every major effort to battle a disease that afflicts 3 million people in the United States. In July, he won a $128 million National Institutes of Health grant to investigate new therapies that may arrest the progression of Type 1 diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes. That happened about a year after he received a $169 million federal grant to study what triggers the disease.

"I believe we have the right combination of science and strategy to be able to eliminate Type 1 diabetes for the next generation," Krischer says in a written statement released today.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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