Thomas Danne never thought he would see the Wall come down. He grew up in West Berlin during the last decades of the Cold War, where the barrier dividing the city was a seemingly permanent fixture. Danne was in Boston during his JDRF fellowship in 1989 when he saw the news footage—unification, the crumbling line between East and West. On television, he saw his childhood friend standing atop the Berlin Wall, the new ruin. “It was very special,” Danne says, “and something I never lost, trying to connect with history.”

When he was in high school, Danne considered himself a student of history but found himself drawn to medicine out of a desire to help people. He went to medical school at the Free University of Berlin, where he specialized in pediatric endocrinology. Danne was a research fellow at Harvard University’s Joslin Diabetes Center and a clinical researcher with Children’s Hospital Auf Der Bult in Hannover, Germany. He currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer, International, with Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) and Professor of Pediatrics at NOVA Medical School, Lisbon, Portugal.

Pediatrics always seemed like a natural fit for Danne. “My brother is 5 years younger than I am,” he says. “I always arranged outings with friends and birthday parties for him, so I’ve always liked being around children.” As a father of four, he understands that managing kids requires a certain amount of flexibility, a concept he brought to his practice.

“The most important thing is to always believe in the futures your children are planning, which may not necessarily be what you had in mind as the parent. That’s the same attitude I had with my diabetes patients,” he says. “I, as a doctor, had a certain idea about how they should treat their diabetes. They may have other ideas based on their circumstances. But in the end, we all have the same goal.”

Thomas Danne, MD

The goal for Danne has always been to improve quality of life for children with diabetes. He, along with friends and colleagues Moshe Philip and Tadej Battelino, conducted the first real-world trial of automated insulin delivery devices in kids with type 1 diabetes. This research included continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps as well as laptop-based algorithm-guided insulin delivery.

“To see these devices relieve the burden for so many with type 1 diabetes has been very meaningful,” Danne says. “‘Finally, we can sleep again at night!’ is something I’ve often heard from families.”

Danne now lives in Lisbon with his wife. He still has a piece of the Berlin Wall, and he remains hopeful that he will witness another seismic historical event.

“I believe that we are at a turning point. A ‘cure’ for type 1 diabetes with cellular solutions are just around the corner,” he says. “It would be nice, a complete circle, to live to see former patients who will say, ‘Yes, type 1 diabetes is something I had at one time. But no longer.’”

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