Seldin's father, Abraham Seldin, was a Jewish immigrant from Bessarabia. Dr. Seldin was one of only afew medical doctors asked to serve on the RAND Corp. board of trustees, a global policy think tank. A major figure in the emergence of nephrology as a discipline, Dr. Seldin is a founder of the American Society of Nephrology, one of seven learned societies around the world to which his peers elected him president. Dr. Seldin served as the only medical doctor on the committee that deve- loped the Belmont Report by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research that helped establish ethical guide- lines, including informed consent, for medical studies in humans. Widely admired as one of the greatest chairs of internal medicine in American medical history, Dr. Seldin was a visionary, a tenacious leader, and a demanding yet patient teacher. His vast grasp of medicine and creative energy created a climate at UT Southwestern that attracted superior faculty. He garnered innumerable teaching honors, was an early member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, served as President of seven major medical societies, and received six honorary degrees, including one from Yale University, his alma mater, and another from the Université de Paris VI - Pierre et Marie Curie.