Dr. Lawrence Chan was born in Hong Kong in 1942, a month before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. The youngest of six children, Dr. Chan excelled in his studies and studied medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He then did an internship in London, Ontario Canada before completing his residency training in internal medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. From there, he decided to focus on academic medicine, thus starting the beginning of his path in endocrinology and diabetes research. During the interview, Dr. Chan recounts Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 which devastated his lab at Baylor College of Medicine, and the 5-year process of becoming a US citizen, which involved the passing of a bill in Congress. Dr. Chan retired in 2016 and hopes to travel more with his wife and pick up his hobbies of painting and playing ping pong.
View interview transcript PDF — Full interview materials on Rice Digital Collections