Professor Sotorios Raptis

Professor Sotorios Raptis

Professor Sotorios Raptis died in May this year in Athens, Greece at the age of 79 years. Sotos, as he was called by everybody, served Hormone and Metabolic Research as a Consultant for more than 20 years. He was born in Athens, where he also went to school and then studied Medicine at the University of Athens. After a postdoctoral training with Professor Karl Fellinger at the 2nd Department of Internal Medicine, University of Vienna he joined Professor Ernst-Friedrich Pfeiffer in 1967, obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1970, and was promoted to Professor of Medicine at the Medical School of the University of Ulm in 1974. As his teacher and later friend Professor Pfeiffer was the co-founder of this Journal and the Senior Editor of Hormone and Metabolic Research Professor Raptis was also closely connected with this Journal ever since.

In 1978, Professor Raptis was elected as the Director of the Diabetes Center at the Department of Clinical Therapeutics, Athens University in Greece, and from 1982–2005 he had a chair of Internal Medicine and was the Head of the 2nd Department of Internal Medicine-Propaedeutics at the University of Athens. Professor Raptis also cared for national programmes to be instituted by the Greek Ministry of Health. From 1990–1994 he chaired the National Transplantation Council and as of 1990 he was also the chairman of the National Diabetes Advisory Committee in his country. In 1995, he served as the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the St. Vincent Declaration Congress in Athens, Greece. In 1993 Professor Raptis founded the “Hellenic National Center for Research, Prevention, and Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus and its Complications” that was installed as a body of the Ministry of Health and he served as its president ever since. The latter institution had and still has a major impact on the improvement of diabetes education, management, and care in Greece.

Professor Raptis was the author or co-author of more than 375 original articles, and also of reviews, book chapters, proceedings, and other scientific contributions. He was deeply engaged in a number of scientific associations in his own country, for example, as the President of the Hellenic Society of Internal Medicine, President of the Helenic Society, President of the Hellenic Transplantation Society, and President of the Hellenic Society for Medical Education. On a European level the diabetes community recalls with gratitude Professor Raptis’ engagement as the Chairman of the 41st Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), held in September 2015 in Athens, Greece, with more than 14 000 participants.

Professor Raptis influenced many young scientists whom he interconnected with research groups in different parts of the world, especially in Europe, and particularly in Germany. We will remember with great admiration the contributions of Sotorios Raptis as a scientist with remarkable energy and outstanding social and political engagements. Professor Raptis left behind four children and his beloved wife Ilse who always joined him to the meetings.

Werner A. Scherbaum M.D., Ph.D.
Senior Editor
Hormone and Metabolic Research