About
Theodore C. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine-UCLA School of Medicine and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science; is the Chairman of the Department of Medicine and the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Molecular Medicine and Metabolism at Charles R. Drew University. Dr. Friedman is board certified in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. He is also an endowed professor in Cardiometabolic Diseases. He is the director of the NIH-funded.
The Next Generation Substance Abuse Research Training at Charles R. Drew University (CDU) and UCLA (NGSART-CU) program and is the Program Director of the Accelerating Excellence In Translational Science (AXIS) institutional grant (PI: Vadgama) and also has research grant studying obesity group visits as part of the grant. Dr. Friedman is also PI of grants on the health disparities of fatty liver disease, a DOD grant on the cardiac effects of e-cigarettes, a smoking cessation implementation grant, and a training grant with Cal State University-San Bernardino on training young scientists on smoking cessation.
Dr. Friedman has published over 140 papers in peer-review journals and wrote the thyroid and adrenal chapters for the widely-read textbook, Cecil Essentials of Medicine. His basic science research interests are on the effects of nicotine and e-cigarettes on the liver, muscle and heart. He has a patent on a chamber to give e-cigarettes to mice. His clinical research interests are adrenal and pituitary disorders as well as diabetes and metabolism. He sees patients and is the lead Endocrinologist at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Outpatient Center and runs a weekly obesity group visit. He is very proud to have contributed to the CDU internal medicine residency that started in June 2021. He is the chairman of the DHS Endocrinology Work Group that helps optimize treatment for large numbers of patients with diabetes, obesity and endocrine conditions.