The internationally renowned scientist, Dr. Mladen Vranic, possessed a certain quality that helped him to make great strides, not only in diabetes research, but in everything he pursued – he never gave up and kept probing until he got answers.
Following medical school, Mladen completed a PhD in Physiology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. He realized early in his career that if he were to succeed internationally, he would need to train with the best in the world. Thus, after much correspondence, Dr. Charles Best invited him to come to the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto to be his final post-doctoral fellow. Their friendship continued until his death, and continued with his son, Henry and the Best family throughout his life. Mladen’s early interactions with Best were exciting and inspirational, and provided a springboard from which to develop his own unique research focus on insulin action and glucose metabolism in exercise and diabetes in vivo. Among his many discoveries, Dr. Vranic changed prevailing thinking when he found that glucagon could be produced outside the pancreas, in the stomach. He developed a new way to measure glucose production in the liver, separately from glucose utilization in the muscle, which led researchers to determine the roles of insulin and glucagon in the body. Dr. Vranic did seminal work on testing the impact of exercise and stress on diabetes and organized the first Kroc symposium in California on this topic. This work would eventually bring researchers to a major eureka moment when they found exercise can actually prevent Type 2 diabetes. His research has been recognized by the most important national and international awards from key organizations, including the American Diabetes Association, the American Physiological Society and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.
Honours include the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, Royal Society of Canada, Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, the Banting Medal and Lectureship, and numerous national and international honorary degrees. With the exception of Banting, Best and MacLeod, he stands as the most decorated scientist to have ever graced the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto.
Mladen embodied the essential qualities that made him an outstanding research supervisor: he encouraged students to follow their dreams; he supported them without hesitation; and he never reacted in anger but, indeed, demonstrated both humour and gentle patience even within the chaos that occasionally surrounded him in his very active research lab. Without ever preaching, Mladen imparted many lessons about being a good graduate supervisor. He was a life-long mentor – training over 50 graduate students and fellows from Canada, the US, Europe and Japan, thereby creating an international legacy through the ongoing research and leadership roles of his many trainees.
But Mladen was so much more than a scientist – he was a Renaissance man! His passion for music and opera ran deep. His home was filled with many fine examples of painting and sculpture. He loved films and travelling to new places, often staying for several days beyond a scientific conference in order to experience the culture of a new city – a habit that he encouraged in his students and his family.
Dr. Vranic wouldn’t retire until his 80s and, in 2015, helped co-found a company researching a cure for hypoglycemia.
— Written by Linda Vranic