Zdenko Škrabalo

Zdenko Škrabalo (4 August 1929 – 12 January 2014) was a Croatian physician, academician and diplomat and former foreign minister of Croatia.

Medical career After finishing high school in his home town of Sombor, Škrabalo enrolled at the University of Zagreb School of Medicine, and graduated in 1953, where he also received a doctorate with a thesis on disorders of endocrine glands. He attended several seminars around Germany, and he founded the first German laboratory for the cytopathology of endocrine glands. He also attended seminars at medical schools in London, Leuven, Boston and Toronto. In 1976, he became full professor at the Zagreb University School of Medicine.

Škrabalo also worked for the World Health Organization as an advisor to various bodies concerned with diabetes treatment. He is notable for being the first researcher who described the parasitic disease piroplasmosis in humans and his later research was concerned with thyroid pathology, andrology and diabetes. In 1995, he was awarded the honorary title of professor emeritus of the University of Zagreb and from 1996 to 2000, he served as ambassador to Hungary. In 2000 Škrabalo went into retirement.