Research award honors Dr. Franklin McDonald

The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) is honoring the late Franklin McDonald, MD, with the establishment of a new research grant program and a research fellowship in his name. Since 1972, Dr. McDonald spent most of his career at Wayne State University where he served as professor of internal medicine and professor emeritus.

The first Franklin D. McDonald, MD Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, which was funded by generous contributions from friends and colleagues, was recently presented to a University of Pennsylvania researcher. The research grant, to be known as the Franklin McDonald/Fresenius Medical Care Clinical Research Award will begin funding in the 2000 grant cycle. The award is open to eligible scientists who are within five years of their initial academic appointment at a university or research institution. The award will fund research focusing on chronic renal failure or end-stage renal disease.

Born in Tamaqua, PA, Dr. McDonald received his medical degree from Temple University in 1962. He did his residency at Henry Ford Hospital and the University of Michigan Medical Center, followed by a nephrology fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Dr. McDonald served as professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine since 1972, until his death in 1998. In the 1980s, Dr. McDonald authored then Vice-President George Bush’s health care policy. From 1996 until his death in January, 1998, Dr. McDonald was executive administrative director of the orthopaedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.