Rayhan Lal, MD, is pediatric and adult endocrine faculty at Stanford. Rayhan grew up in the California bay area and always wanted to be an engineer. He has had type 1 diabetes for over 30 years. He studied electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. His two younger sisters were enrolled in DPT-1, were found to be antibody positive and developed type 1 diabetes. In an effort to help all his brothers and sisters with diabetes, Dr Lal decided to switch career paths and pursue clinical medicine at the University of California, Davis. Dr Lal could not decide whether to take care of children or adults with diabetes and so did both. He completed a four-year residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Southern California, working with the underserved at Los Angeles County Hospital. Dr Lal then completed an adult and pediatric endocrine fellowship at Stanford.
As an engineer and physician-scientist with diabetes, his primary research interest is the design, development and testing of new diabetes technology and therapies with his mentor, Dr Bruce Buckingham. Dr Lal collaborates with many members of the Stanford Diabetes Research Center, industry and the open source diabetes community in an effort to bypass the biological, technological and human factor limitations of existing devices.