Preserving Your Beta Cells: Peter Butler, M.D. at TEDxDelMar

Our theme for TEDxDelMar 2011 was "A Search For A Cure". In this video, Dr. Butler gives us his talk entitled "Preserving Your Beta Cells".

Peter Butler is Chief Director, Larry Hillblom Islet Research Center at UCLA and professor of medicine at UCLA where his research interests include arresting loss of beta cell mass and promoting beta cell formation.

After obtaining his MD at the University of Birmingham, UK in 1980, Dr. Butler underwent training in internal medicine in Edinburgh and Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. He then underwent training in Endocrinology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and then at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN where he was also a research fellow. He was then appointed to a clinical faculty position at Mayo Clinic in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. He was also the Associate Director of the General Clinical Research Center and led an NIH funded research program. After six years on the faculty at the Mayo Clinic he was appointed to the Chair of Diabetes at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where he established the first Clinical Research Center in the UK. He returned to the USA in 1999 when he was appointed to Chief of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension at the University of Southern California moving to the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002. At UCLA he has established the Larry Hillblom Islet Research Center, a free standing building that houses investigators with a wide range of skills focused on revealing the mechanisms of beta cell loss and potential regeneration in people with type 1 and 2 diabetes. He is director of the LHIRC islet isolation and physiology core. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Diabetes. He is also the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension. His clinical practice at UCLA focuses on care of patients with diabetes.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.