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A conversation with Derek LeRoith, MD, PhD
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In this issue, Endocrine Today talks with Editorial Board member Derek LeRoith, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, endocrinology, diabetes and bone disease at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. His laboratory focuses on insulin-like growth factors and their role in disease, particularly cancer. Educated at the University of Cape Town, LeRoith held research and medical positions in Israel and London before joining the U.S. National Institutes of Health, where he served as diabetes branch chief of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
Was there a defining moment that led you to your field?
Derek LeRoith
Dr. LeRoith: The defining moment was being involved with my mentor, Bernard Pimstone, in Cape Town, South Africa. He was a well-known endocrinologist at the time, and he got me excited about endocrinology. It was the intellectual stimulus that attracted me to his laboratory. At that stage, endocrinology was the leading subspecialty in terms of research and discovery. Subsequently, when I came to the United States, I worked at the NIH with Dr. Jesse Roth, who is also very famous in the field, and he got me interested in specific areas in endocrinology, like diabetes. I think the focus today really covers obesity and diabetes and metabolism, which is a fundamental physiological process that when deranged results in diseases. The underlying metabolic physiology is what’s exciting to me.
What advice would you offer a student in medical school today?
Dr. LeRoith: If a medical student is interested in being more than just a physician, is interested in the intellectual stimulus that that academia gives, the important thing is to find the right mentor and the right topic that suits them, and to persevere. Finding the right mentor involves being lucky that you find somebody that you relate to.
Have you ever been fortunate enough to witness medical history in the making?
Dr. LeRoith: As a final year medical student I saw the first heart transplant, from above in a theater-style setting. This was performed by Christian Barnard in Cape Town. One of the physicians I was friendly with sneaked me in.
What do you think will have the greatest influence on your field in the next 10 years?
Dr. LeRoith: I think that if things go well, replacing islet cell function may have an important impact for both type 1 and type 2 patients. I think research is advancing quite well; it’s taken a long time, but I think that in the next 10 years there may be some progress.
What is up next for you?
Dr. LeRoith: Travel and discovery. I work in obesity and diabetes and their relationship with cancer. Cancer is more severe in diabetes than in nondiabetic and nonobese individuals, and therapy is limited. Finding new therapeutic targets is what I would be excited about. – by Jill Rollet