The endocrine pancreas and juvenile diabetes

Dr. Robert L. Jackson, Professor of Child Health at the University of Missouri-Columbia, decided to retire from clinical practice in 1977 and the Department of Child Health planned a conference in his honor. The Thirteenth Annual Midwest Conference on Endocrinology and Metabolism also was in the planning stages and scheduled for two days in the fall. It seemed appropriate to combine the two into an expanded three-day conference. In view of Dr. Jackson's international reputation in the study and care of children with diabetes mellitus, the conference topic was not difficult to find. Experts in this field were delighted to be asked to speak at a conference in Dr. Jackson's honor. We selected a number of excellent speakers to survey the physiology and pathophysiology of pancreatic hormones and their effects in diabetes mellitus, to discuss current knowledge of the microvascular complications of the disease, and to put it all into the proper historical perspective of where we have been and where we are going. We think the conference achieved its objective to pay meaningful tribute to a distinguished member of the scientific community.