It's more than a motto; it defines the very purpose of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center.

Just a few short years ago, access to comprehensive, multidisciplinary diabetes care was not available in New York -- a city that prides itself for providing the best medical care in the world. Now, thanks to the generous contributions of Russ Berrie, founder of Russ Berrie and Company, Inc., and others, a new standard of diabetes care is available to the 1 in 8 million people with diabetes in the New York area.

The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center, named after Russ Berrie's mother who, like her son, had diabetes, opened in the Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion at Columbia University Medical Center in October 1998. The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center combines unprecedented family-oriented patient care and education with world-class diabetes research programs.

The clinical program of the Berrie Center now cares for more than 10,000 adults and children with diabetes from a diverse socioethnic background and includes one of the largest pediatric diabetes programs, one of the largest number of patients with adolescent-onset type 2 diabetes, and one of the largest insulin pump programs in the country. In addition, the Berrie Center clinical population includes one of the largest number of patients with type 1 diabetes in the country. The Berrie Center is a leader in the recruitment of minority research subjects into diabetes clinical trials. Among the most unique aspects of the Berrie Center is the integration of clinical and research activities that creates a unique environment in which reciprocal interactions among clinicians and scientists inform research and therapeutic decisions. Our research efforts, led by more than fifty Columbia University scientists, focus on the causes and cures of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, obesity, and the prevention of complications from the disease.