Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Community:

It is with a heavy heart that I write to share the news of the death of Christopher T. Walsh, the Hamilton Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Emeritus, at HMS. Dr. Walsh, who was beloved by so many throughout the HMS community and around the world, died on Tuesday, at the age of 79, following a fall.

A keen and prophetic scientist, Dr. Walsh was at the forefront of uniting the fields of chemistry, biology, and medicine. As past chair of the Department of Chemistry at MIT, founding chair of the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology (BCMP) at HMS, and former president of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he had an uncanny knack for fostering collaborative science — especially work conducted at the interface of disciplines. His academic intuition was matched only by his care for and attention to people. Described by many as a once-in-a-lifetime colleague, mentor, and friend, Dr. Walsh drew the best out of his students and his peers.

Dr. Walsh had a penchant for elucidating chemical transformations in living organisms. One of Dr. Walsh’s most influential scientific achievements was the unraveling of the molecular mechanisms by which bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, specifically vancomycin, a last-ditch option for drug-resistant infections. This work accelerated the development of new families of antibiotics that combat resistant bacterial strains. Dr. Walsh was both a champion of the curiosity-driven research that lay at the heart of his career and an advocate for translational efforts that turn laboratory findings into new medicines.

After graduating from Harvard College in 1965, Dr. Walsh cultivated a passion for enzymatic and natural product biosynthesis at Rockefeller University. Subsequently, he spent 15 years at MIT bridging the institute’s chemistry and biology departments — and was then recruited to HMS in 1987 as the chair of the newly created Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. As chair of BCMP, he built a team of exceptional structural biologists, chemical biologists, and molecular biologists, and brought HMS widespread recognition for illuminating the molecular mechanisms that underlie biology and disease.

In addition to providing his trainees with the highest quality mentorship and helping to reshape the School’s MD curriculum and PhD training programs, Dr. Walsh was a fierce supporter of women in science. His desire to identify and help students overcome obstacles in a historically male-dominated apprenticeship system is one of the many reasons we will sorely miss him.

Dr. Walsh represented everything that is good and noble about academic medicine and medical education. Our hearts go out to his wife, Diana, and the rest of his family during this time of grief.

Sincerely,

George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University