Google Honours Dr Herbert Kleber with a Google Doodle

Google is celebrating Dr Herbert David Kleber incredible work with a Doodle on the 23rd anniversary of his election to the National Academy of Medicine. Dr Kleber is a renowned American psychiatrist who instigated addiction psychology and substance abuse researcher. He dedicated more than half of his life to treating drug addiction, he passed away last year on October 5, 2018, at the age of 84.

He was born on June 19, 1934, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He went to Dartmouth College to study pre-med and discovered his passion for psychology. He realised about his life's mission after he was assigned to the Public Health Service Prison Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, upon completing his psychiatric residency at Yale University.

Unlike his generations, Dr Kleber never looked at drug addiction as a moral failure. He believed addiction is a condition that could only be treated with the help of research, medication and therapy.

In due course, Dr Kleber came up with a method he called "evidence-based treatment" that relied on research and science to change the journey of addiction. His work was recognised by former US President George H W Bush and was appointed as the Deputy Director for Demand Reduction at the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

He joined as a Faculty at the Yale University School of Psychiatry in 1964, where he found the Drug Dependence Unit in 1968. He was in the position of the unit's head for more than twenty years. Later President George H.W. Bush in 1989 appointed him to serve as deputy director for Demand Reduction at the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

During his 50 years of career, Dr Kleber founded various centres aimed at treating addiction and wrote more than 250 articles and papers on addiction and how to overcome it. He was also the co-editor of the American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Substance Abuse Treatment.