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It is difficult to express in words the anguish that the death of our friend and colleague, Dr. Gary Freidenberg, has brought to the Indianapolis medical community. Dr. Freidenberg died on 23 September 1999, his 50th birthday, after a courageous battle with a brain tumor. By Jewish tradition, when a man dies on his birthday, it is an indication that he has lived life as a holy man. This is undoubtedly the way that Dr. Freidenberg lived his life.
Dr. Freidenberg graduated from Ohio State University summa cum laude in mathematics in 1971. He completed his medical training there in 1975, followed by a pediatric residency, a year as chief resident, and a clinical pediatric endocrinology fellowship. He then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow with Dr. Jerome Olefsky at the University of Colorado and moved with him to the University of California in San Diego in 1983, where he assumed a faculty position in the Division of Endocrinology in the Department of Pediatrics. In 1991, we aggressively recruited Dr. Freidenberg to Indiana University to direct the pediatric diabetes activities in the Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology Section.
Dr. Freidenberg's work focused on improving the lives of children with diabetes. His critical research contributions spanned the spectrum of both clinical and basic science. He published nearly 50 manuscripts in first-class peer-reviewed journals that...