It’s more than a motto; it defines the very purpose of the patient care program at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center.
Just a few years ago, access to comprehensive, multidisciplinary diabetes care was not available in New York — a city that prides itself in providing the best medical care in the world. Now, thanks to the generous contributions of Russ Berrie, founder of Russ Berrie and Company, Inc., and other philanthropists, a new standard of diabetes care is available to the more than 8 million people with diabetes in the New York area.

The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center, named after Russ Berrie’s mother who, like her son, had diabetes, opened in the Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion at Columbia University Medical Center in October 1998. The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center combines unprecedented family-oriented patient care and education with world-class diabetes research programs.

The clinical program of the Berrie Center now cares for more than 10,000 adults and children with diabetes and our patients come from diverse socioethnic backgrounds. Our pediatric diabetes program is renowned for its comprehensive attention to caring for children with diabetes and our patient population with type 1 is among the largest in the United States. In addition, the Berrie Center is a leader in translational diabetes research. Among the most prized aspects of the Center is the integration of clinical and research activities. This collaborative environment creates a unique approach to diabetes care in which reciprocal interactions among clinicians and scientists inform research and therapeutic decisions. Our clinical research efforts focus on the causes and cures for type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

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Research is the means to better treatments and, ultimately, to a cure for diabetes. In research laboratories at Columbia University, world-renowned physician-scientists associated with the Berrie Center are working on a wide range of diabetes studies that are advancing the field and moving ever closer towards a cure for diabetes.

What are the underlying causes of diabetes, and how can the disease be prevented or cured? Finding the answers to these primary questions is what drives Dr. Rudolph Leibel, director of research efforts at the Berrie Center.

“When I was trained as a pediatric endocrinologist some twenty-five years ago, we knew very little about the causes of diabetes,” says Dr. Leibel. “I felt powerless to improve the lives of patients who were referred to me for this disease. I turned to research because I thought I could do more for these children by advancing our knowledge of the disease.” “Since then our understanding of diabetes has grown rapidly. We know that individuals with diabetes can enjoy long, productive lives and avoid or delay many disease-related complications with appropriate glucose management and regular medical follow-up. We can now improve patients’ lives tremendously through education and better treatments, but much work is still to be done. We are probably close to breakthroughs in Type 1 diabetes, and I think we will soon unravel the brain mechanisms that regulate body weight, appetite and energy metabolism, which in turn would enable us to better control obesity, a very important contributor to Type 2 diabetes.”

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