“It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., who served as the director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for more than 30 years. He was one of the longest-serving leaders at NIH and continued his service as director emeritus of NLM after his retirement in March 2015. Because of his pioneering work in applying computer technology to biomedical research and health information, he is considered by many to be the country’s senior statesman for computers and medicine. Don died on August 16 following a fall; he was 85.”
“When he joined NLM as director in 1984, Don predicted that computers would become increasingly useful in biomedical research and patient care, medical informatics would emerge as a formal research field and academic discipline, and progress in cancer research and molecular biology would become a matter of immediate personal concern.”
“A consummate planner, Don took a long view by developing long-range plans for NLM that helped him deliver on his predictions. Under his leadership, NLM embraced the Internet, enabling the public, health providers, and scientists gain new or improved access to medical literature via PubMed and PubMed Central; clinical trials and their results via ClinicalTrials.gov; and consumer health information via MedlinePlus.”
“He played an integral role in the establishment of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of NLM that provides access to biomedical and genomic information. He also served as the first director of the government-wide Office of High-Performance Computing and Communications…” Read the full post here.
Source: Mourning the loss of former NLM Director Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D. – August 19, 2019. NIH.
