| 1 | Name: | Dr. Donald F. Steiner | |
| Institution: | University of Chicago; Howard Hughes Medical Institute | ||
| Year Elected: | 2004 | ||
| Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1930 | ||
| Death Date: | November 11, 2014 | ||
Donald F. Steiner was born in Lima, Ohio in 1930. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 1956 and had a distinguished career at the university as professor of biochemistry (1968-70); A. N. Pritzker Professor of Biochemistry and Medicine (1970-84); chairman of the department of biochemistry (1973-79); director of the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center (1974-78); associate director of the Diabetes and Research Training Center (1977-81); and A. N. Pritzker Distinguished Service Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Medicine (1984-2014). He has also been a senior investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1985-2006) and director or co-director of the University of Chicago Diabetes and Research Training Center. In 1967 Dr. Steiner discovered proinsulin, the single-chain precursor of insulin. He purified it and studied its structure, properties, biosynthesis, and cell biology, demonstrating its intracellular conversion into insulin and the cosecreted C-peptide. With Dr. A. H. Rubenstein, radioimmunoassays were developed for proinsulin and C-peptide in serum, which have been widely applied in diabetes research. Dr. Steiner's pioneering studies thus opened the now very broad field of precursor protein processing, leading to the identification of many other proproteins and more recently to the discovery of the mammalian proprotein convertase family of cellular processing endoproteases. His laboratory also first demonstrated receptor-mediated uptake and degradation of insulin. His discoveries have strongly influenced insulin and islet cell research, ranging from the commercial production of human insulin for diabetes therapy to the evolution of insulin and insulin-like growth factors (IGFs). The recipient of honors including the Gairdner Award (1971), Wolf Foundation Prize in Medicine (1985) and the Endocrine Society's Fred C. Koch Award (1990), Dr. Steiner was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was elected a member ofthe American Philosophical Society in 2004. Donald Steiner died November 11, 2014, at age 84 at his home in Chicago, Illinois. | |||