Professor David Russell-Jones raised £2 million and built an innovative ambulatory care and research centre for patients with diabetes and endocrine diseases (cedar centre).

The cedar centre was set up to try and provide the best possible clinical care for patients with diabetes, to provide a focus for patients empowerment and self management.  In addition, the aim was to provide top quality research that would lead to new treatments for patients with both diabetes and endocrine disorders.

A charity was set up under the name of cedar (centre for endocrinology, diabetes and research) and many thousands of people took part in events to raise money. Fundraising was kickstarted by a group of 29 people, lead by Professor Russell-Jones, taking part in the annual Engadin Ski marathon (some of whom had never even skied before!) raising a total of £75,000.

Nicholas Grimshaw, an innovative Architect who designed the Eden project and the international terminal at Waterloo station, kindly agreed to design the cedar centre to enable a patient focused clinical centre that incorporated all of the healthcare professionals, educational needs for both patients and the community together with the best possible laboratory and research facilities.

The unit was opened by Prince Andrew in 2005 and provides the focus for clinical care and research within the region.

There is a very close working relationship between the cedar centre and the newly funded Wolsten translational research laboratories at the University of Surrey where all of the samples generated from clinical studies at the cedar center are evaluated and analysed.  The department scored very highly in the research assessment of British Universities and the centre is the focus for the clinical local research network for diabetes across Surrey and Sussex.