We are enormously saddened by the death of our friend and colleague, Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, on August 17, 2019. Throughout his long career, Don was a visionary leader who, earlier than most, saw the potential of technology to improve health care. He was a founder of our field, and he was a steadfast supporter of Methods. Beginning in 1970, when the journal was still a relatively new journal edited by Gustav Wagner, Don served in various capacities for the journal, including as a member of the editorial board, as associate editor, and finally as senior editor. He was among the distinguished colleagues who came together at the University of Heidelberg in June 2011 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Methods.

Donald Lindberg was born on September 21, 1933 at Brooklyn in New York. He graduated Magna cum Laude from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1954 and went on to medical school at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, graduating in 1958. He trained in anatomy and clinical pathology at Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center, and he subsequently spent more than 20 years at the University of Missouri, where he was a professor of pathology and information science. He joined the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) as its director in 1984 and retired in 2015 after leading the library for more than 30 years. He was appointed the founding director of the coordinating center for the White House initiative known as the High Performance Computing and Communications program in the early 1990's, a position he held for several years concurrently with the directorship of NLM. In 1996, he was named by the Secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary to be the U.S. Coordinator for the G-7 Global Healthcare Applications Project.

Don oversaw the NLM during a period of enormous technological and scientific advances, and his great skill at harnessing those advances for scientific discovery and social good is well-known. The Human Genome Project of National Institute of Health (NIH) led to the establishment of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at NLM during Don's tenure. The many NCBI contributions since its establishment in the late 1980's have revolutionized the way biomedical research is conducted. Extraordinary access to the internet was ushered in by the web browser technology that became available in the mid 1990's. Don immediately saw this as an opportunity to open NLM's vast resources to the world, and within short order, anyone, anywhere could find and make use of NLM's treasure trove of biomedical information. The PubMed interface to MEDLINE, the database of citations to the world's biomedical literature, PubMed Central, the database of publicly accessible full text articles, and ClinicalTrials.gov, the database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies from around the world, along with a host of chemical, drug, environmental health, and toxicology resources continue to be used every day by millions of people around the globe.

Don had a deep commitment to improving the lives of patients and their families. MedlinePlus, an NLM resource designed specifically for patients and families to find high-quality health information was of great importance to him. He was also a devoted member of the board of Health on the Net, an organization founded in the mid 1990's to identify and promote reliable health information online. He established partnerships with underserved communities throughout the United States and expanded the reach of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, a nation-wide network of libraries and other organizations that provide health information wherever it is needed.

Don's importance to the field of biomedical informatics cannot be overemphasized. Shortly after arriving at NLM in the early 1980's, he brought together all the leaders (and their best students) of the major academic medical informatics centers around the country with the ambitious goal to provide better access to distributed health information. This effort resulted in what came to be known as the Unified Medical Language System, a widely-used set of tools for interlinking the data found in health information systems, such as electronic health record systems, scientific literature databases, and public health resources. NLM's informatics training programs have supported multiple generations of trainees who have gone on to become leaders in the field. NLM's grants program, though relatively small in comparison with other NIH institutes, has funded some of the most important research in our field. Don helped to establish the American Medical Informatics Association and served as its first President. He has been a key force in the enormous growth of our field since its inception, and he has contributed to its recognition as a scientific discipline at the national and international levels.

Don's many accomplishments have been amply recognized with numerous awards, honorary doctorates, and other honors. We mourn the loss of a superb leader, a dedicated public servant, and a staunch supporter of our field. We will miss our good friend Don Lindberg, and we will remember him with great fondness.

我们为我们的朋友和同事Donald AB Lindberg，MD于2019年8月17日去世感到非常难过。在他的漫长职业生涯中，Don是一位富有远见的领导者，他比大多数人更早看到了改善医疗保健技术的潜力。他是我们领域的创始人，并且是Methods的坚定支持者。从1970年开始，当该杂志仍是由Gustav Wagner编辑的相对较新的期刊时，Don担任该杂志的各种职务，包括担任编辑委员会成员，副编辑以及最终担任高级编辑。他是杰出的同事之一，他们于2011年6月一起参加海德堡大学，庆祝“方法论”成立50周年。

唐纳德·林德伯格（Donald Lindberg）于1933年9月21日出生于纽约布鲁克林。他以优异成绩毕业于麦格纳学院1954年从马萨诸塞州阿默斯特学院（Amherst College）毕业，并于1958年毕业于纽约哥伦比亚大学内科医生与外科医生学院医学院。他在哥伦比亚–长老会医学中心接受了解剖学和临床病理学方面的培训，随后他花费了在密苏里大学任职20年，在那里他是病理学和信息科学教授。他于1984年加入美国国家医学图书馆（NLM）担任主任，并在领导该图书馆30多年后于2015年退休。在1990年代初期，他被任命为白宫计划协调中心的创始理事，该计划被称为“高性能计算和通信计划”，在担任NLM主任的同时，他担任了数年。在1996年，

在技​​术和科学发展迅猛的时期，Don负责监督NLM，他在利用这些进步进行科学发现和社会公益方面的出色技能是众所周知的。在唐任职期间，美国国家卫生研究院（NIH）的人类基因组计划促成了国家生物技术信息中心（NCBI）的建立。自1980年代后期成立以来，NCBI做出了许多贡献，彻底改变了生物医学研究的进行方式。Web浏览器技术在1990年代中期开始提供对互联网的非凡访问。唐立即将其视为向世界开放NLM大量资源的机会，并且在短时间内，任何地方，任何地方都可以找到并利用NLM的生物医学信息宝库。ClinicalTrials.gov是来自世界各地的私人和公共资助临床研究的数据库，以及许多化学，药物，环境健康和毒理学资源，每天仍在继续被全球数百万人使用。

唐对改善患者及其家人的生活有着深远的承诺。MedlinePlus是一个NLM资源，专门为患者和家庭设计，以查找高质量的健康信息，这对他而言非常重要。他还是网络卫生委员会的专门成员，该委员会成立于1990年代中期，旨在在线识别和推广可靠的健康信息。他与全美服务欠缺的社区建立了合作伙伴关系，并扩大了国家医学图书馆网络的覆盖范围，该网络是一个遍布全国的图书馆网络和其他组织，可在任何需要的地方提供健康信息。

唐在生物医学信息学领域的重要性不可过分强调。在1980年代初到达NLM之后不久，他召集了全国主要学术医学信息学中心的所有领导人（及其最优秀的学生），其宏伟目标是为人们提供更好地获取分布式健康信息的途径。这项工作导致了所谓的统一医学语言系统，这是一套广泛使用的工具，用于互连健康信息系统中的数据，例如电子健康记录系统，科学文献数据库和公共卫生资源。NLM的信息学培训计划为多代受训者提供了支持，这些受训者已成为该领域的领导者。NLM的赠款计划，尽管与国立卫生研究院的其他机构相比规模较小，但已资助了我们领域中一些最重要的研究。唐帮助建立了美国医学信息学协会，并担任了第一任主席。自成立以来，他一直是该领域巨大发展的关键力量，并为该领域在国家和国际水平上的认可而做出了贡献。

唐的许多成就已获得无数奖项，荣誉博士学位和其他荣誉的充分认可。我们为失去我们这一领域的杰出领导人，敬业的公务员和坚定的支持者而感到哀悼。我们会想念我们的好朋友唐·林德伯格，我们将非常喜欢他。