Posted on October 24, 2002 at 9:00 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Dr. David S. H. Bell, UAB professor of medicine and renowned clinical researcher in diabetes, has been chosen by the Southern Medical Association (SMA) to receive the Seale Harris Award for 2002.

The award will presented November 16 at the annual meeting of the SMA. It recognizes an association member for important research accomplishment in the broad field of metabolism, endocrinology or nutrition, or for significant accomplishments contributing to a better understanding of the chemical changes occurring in disease.

Harris was an internist who opened a highly regarded clinic in Birmingham in 1922. He studied the effects of excessive insulin secretion in nondiabetic patients and how hypoglycemia then results. He died in 1957.

Bell, a native of Northern Ireland, attended Queens University Belfast medical school and did further training in internal medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast. He also completed a residency and an endocrine fellowship at University Hospital Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and an endocrine fellowship at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. After two years in private practice, he returned to academia, holding faculty appointments at Temple University and Pennsylvania State University before joining UAB in 1980. He is director of the endocrine division clinical research program.

Bell has published more than 150 articles in medical journals, is a reviewer for many general medicine and endocrine journals, and is on the editorial board of Endocrine Practice, Treatments in Endocrinology, and Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

His academic interests include the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes and their complications. He is recognized in Best Doctors in America.