A $554,000 gift to the University of Iowa Foundation from the estate of Marvin F. Hall of Joplin, Missouri, will establish the Marvin F. Hall Family Diabetes Research Fund in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.

John Stokes, executive vice chair for the UI Department of Internal Medicine and director of the UI Division of Nephrology, says the gift will provide an essential tool for UI scientists who are looking for answers to important questions surrounding diabetes.

"We are absolutely thrilled that the late Marvin Hall and his family have established this endowed fund to support research in diabetes. The increased incidence of diabetes over the past decade has been one of the most alarming threats to public health we have seen," says Stokes.

"We have considerable information about, but little understanding of, why diabetes occurs, why it affects some people so severely, and how the devastating consequences occur. So we are grateful to the Hall family for their extraordinary vision."

Melvin Richards, Marvin Hall's nephew and consultant for the estate says the family is proud to support the UI.

"Marvin's son — my cousin, Jim — had juvenile diabetes. Over the years, my uncle and his wife, Grace, took Jim to a number of specialists for treatment," says Richards, a 1966 graduate of the UI Carver College of Medicine. "It was important to my uncle to support research to help others like Jim, and I was pleased to help the family fulfill that wish."

Marvin Hall earned his medical degree from the UI in 1937 and was one of the first residents in radiology at the Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis. After completing his residency, he moved to Joplin, Missouri, where he served as radiologist for St. John's Hospital and later established a private practice. In 1951 he took a two-year leave to serve as a radiologist in the U.S. Air Force at Scott Air Base in Illinois. He died in 1987.

The UI acknowledges the UI Foundation as the preferred channel for private contributions that benefit all areas of the university. For more information about the foundation, visit www.uifoundation.org.