MEET LOCAL LEGEND: Carla Greenbaum, M.D.

BIOGRAPHY

After graduating with a degree in medicine from Brown University, Carla Greenbaum began practicing family medicine, but soon realized that she wanted to know more about one of the medical problems she often encountered-diabetes. "I'd see lots of patients with diabetes and I realized that I didn't really know enough about the problem. I'd always loved science and research and here was an opportunity to go into depth on one subject. I decided to study endocrinology and learn about diabetes." It was a fortunate choice for Carla Greenbaum who has gained a national and international reputation for her work in diabetes clinical research.

She has been described by a colleague as "someone who can take the advances in laboratory science and creatively translate them into protocols suitable for first-time use in human beings, working at the cutting edge of medical science."

Nominated by former Representative Jennifer Dunn (R-WA-8th), Carla Greenbaum is the Director of Diabetes Clinical Research at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. Her work on Type 1 diabetes (often called juvenile diabetes) has impacted the treatment of the disease and has made her one of the nation's most respected diabetes researchers. She is acknowledged internationally as a leader in the design and conduct of experimental trials for children with diabetes.

Carla Greenbaum began her career with a Residency in Family Medicine in 1982 at the Swedish Hospital in Seattle followed by service as a clinical physician with the U.S. Public Health Service in Salem, OR. She completed a Research Fellowship in 1987 at the Division of Endocrinology, in the Department of Medicine, University of Washington.

She later served as an attending physician at the Diabetes Care Center at the University of Washington, and in 2000 joined the medical staff of the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle where she has devoted herself to clinical research into Type 1 diabetes.

She helped organize a Diabetes Trial Net under the auspices of the NIH, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the American Diabetes Association, that has made important strides in identifying risk factors for Type 1 diabetes.

She is the author of numerous scientific publications, abstracts, editorials and reviews, and is a frequent speaker at national and international meetings and conferences. "I love what I do," Carla Greenbaum said. "It's at the intersection between research and a better understanding of immunology. At Benaroya, we bring what we learn in the laboratory to patients, and we test what we learn from patients in the lab." A colleague, Gerald T. Nepom, Director of the Benaroya Research Institute, wrote of her: "It is her combination of scientific achievement, academic rigor, and compassionate personal physician that is unusual. She is a devoted doctor who is extremely gifted at helping patients, usually young children, and their families deal with diabetes."