Dr. Landau receives the Diabetes Research Lifetime Achievement Award from DAGC Board Chairman, Phil Goldberg, MD November 2006

March 24, 2007:

The Diabetes Association of Greater Cleveland's Dietrich Diabetes Research Institute joins with colleagues and friends throughout the world in mourning the loss of Bernard R. Landau, MD, PhD. This dedicated and extraordinary man, scientist, and teacher will be missed. Our sincere condolences to his family.

Dr. Landau was Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical and Molecular Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. He was an internationally recognized leader in the field of intermediary carbohydrate metabolism and actively engaged in research up to the time of his death at age 80.

According to son, Steven, Dr. Landau was born in Newark, New Jersey to Morris and Estelle Landau and attended Weequahic High School, where he graduated as the salutatorian in 1944. From 1944 to 1959, he lived in Boston, Massachusetts with exception of 1955 to 1957 while completing his US public health service commitment in Bethesda, Maryland.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree from M.I.T. in 1947, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1950 from Harvard University with his thesis completed under the direction of the 1965 Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, Robert Burns Woodward. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1954. Dr. Landau received an honorary M.D. in the area of Clinical Physiology from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden in 1993 based on the contributions of his research.

His post-M.D. training includes an internship and residency in medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and a fellowship in biochemistry at Harvard. Dr. Landau was a USPHS fellow at the National Cancer Institute for two years.

Appointed an Assistant Professor in Medicine and Biochemistry at Case in 1959, he rose through the ranks to Professor, while being at Case, except from 1967-1969 when he was Director of Biochemistry at the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research in Rahway, New Jersey. He was Director of the Metabolism Division from 1962 -1967 and of the Endocrinology Division from 1969 to 1987 at University Hospitals of Cleveland.

Dr. Landau had an appointment as a Foreign Adjunct Professor at the Karolinska Institute and completed two sabbaticals at the Institute with support from the Fogarty International Center of the NIH. He was a Nobel Fellow at the Karolinska Institute in 1996.

He was a member of the American Association of Physicians, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the American Physiological Society, American Diabetes Association, the Endocrine Society and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the American Journal of Physiology and was the Endocrine Section Editor for the AJP in 1966. He was an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association. He had over 150 peer-reviewed publications and received a MERIT award from the NIH. Dr. Landau was a former Chair of the Education Committee and Program Chair of the Professional Section at the Diabetes Association of Greater Cleveland and contributed greatly over the years by developing booklets and materials to further DAGC’s mission.

Dr. Landau's research was exploring the quantitation of the pathways of glucose production and utilization in normal individuals and in individuals with diabetes. Together with Professor Harland Wood at CWRU, Dr. Landau defined the nature of and the contribution of the Pentose Phosphate Pathway. He was particularly focused on the metabolic fate of carbohydrates in liver, muscle, pancreas and kidney. Dr. Landau was an established leader in the use of noninvasive evaluation of metabolism utilizing isotopes.

Dr. Landau received his first DAGC grant award in 1961 providing pilot funds for a new study, “Insulin regulation of glucose metabolism in adipose tissue.” He was funded by DAGC an additional 13 times throughout the years, receiving the greatest number of awards in DAGC’s long history of research support. In an interview with Dr. Landau last fall, he acknowledged the impact of the DAGC grant program stating, “[DAGC funding] led to 45 yrs of continuous NIH support. Over 45 years, 1960-1967 and 1970-present, I have received continuous support from the NIH. The grants from DAGC during that time supported pilot studies on projects that then have become part of larger studies supported by the NIH under the project title “Pathways of Carbohydrate, Lipid and Protein Metabolism”. I estimate in those 45 years, grant awards from national sources, particularly the NIH, total about 10 million dollars.”

In recognition of his unparalleled contributions to the body of work in diabetes, the Diabetes Association of Greater Cleveland’s Dietrich Diabetes Research Institute (DDRI) was proud to present the first Diabetes Research Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Bernard Landau at the first annual Chairman’s Forum focusing on diabetes research in November 2006. He was also recognized for his achievements at the 53rd DAGC Annual Meeting on February 7, 2007.

This distinguished scientist, through his dedication to diabetes research, changed the way the disease is understood and continues to influence the direction of investigators who follow him.

Dr. Landau lived in Shaker Heights, Ohio and is predeceased by his wife Lucille (2004) and daughter Deborah Louise (1985). He is survived by two sons, Dr. Steven Brian of Wellesley Hills, MA and Rodger Martin, Esq. of Los Angeles California with five grandchildren.

His loss is felt throughout the world – but particularly here in northeast Ohio where he contributed so much to research, to CWRU, to DAGC and most of all to everyone with diabetes.