Proceedings of the HMS Faculty Council
The May 20 Faculty Council meeting began with a presentation on emergency room diversion by Richard Wolfe, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and David Brown, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Wolfe defined diversion, the practice of turning away ambulances due to overcrowded emergency rooms, which is now prohibited by Massachusetts state law. He discussed the conditions under which it is put into effect and described BID’s plan to phase it out. Brown addressed emergency department crowding and the elimination of diversion at MGH.
Wolfe presented an organizational approach to gauge when a hospital has reached its ED capacity and said that steps to take upon reaching capacity did not include external transfers; rather, key hospital personnel were to be notified and patients identified who could be transferred to an overflow unit.
Similarly, Brown said emergency department crowding is recognized as a hospitalwide issue—not just an ED issue. He said that it is expected to worsen as the population ages. Brown gave examples of steps that have been taken at MGH to better manage the flow of patients, including the addition of a second CT scanner and 24-hour coverage by attending physicians in emergency radiology as well as a redesign of the front end of the ED for better triaging of patients. He also shared the observation that that there is no excess capacity in the system and that any further closing of hospitals or EDs would overwhelm neighboring hospital EDs.
David Scadden, the Gerald and Darlene Jordan professor of medicine at MGH, presented on the impact of President Obama’s changes to stem cell research policy. Scadden said that the existing amendment to all stem cell bills, including the new one, restricts any activity involving manipulation of embryos. He said the problem with somatic cells is that they are generated by genetic modification, and these modifications are tumorigenic. Embryonic cells are still the gold standard.
Scadden noted that under Executive Order 13505, NIH funding is allowed for research using embryonic stem cell lines from embryos that were created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) for reproductive purposes and are no longer needed for that purpose. The order required that, among other conditions and requirements, written consent must be obtained for donation for research at the time of reproductive services and at the time of donation for research. He emphasized that the proposed guidelines could actually reduce the number of eligible embryonic stem cell lines because none of the existing lines are grandfathered into the new draft guidelines because the conditions required may be undocumentable and because currently funded research that uses the previously sanctioned lines may be forced to stop.
Scadden said that Harvard will recommend basing consent on IRB guidelines and permitting the use of other lines that are routinely discarded.
Biostatistics Chair Named at HSPH
Victor DeGruttola, professor of biostatistics at HSPH, was recently appointed chair of that department. He had been serving as acting chair since January.
DeGruttola has worked on development of statistical methods required for mounting an appropriate public health response to the AIDS epidemic both within the U.S. and internationally. His focus has been on transmission and natural history of infection with HIV, as well as development and consequences of resistance to treatments. DeGruttola served as director of the Statistics and Data Analysis Center of the Adult Project of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group during the period in which highly active antiretroviral treatment was developed, and he was instrumental in designing and analyzing studies to identify the best means of providing such therapy. He has also served on NIH Study sections, FDA advisory panels, and IOM committees; and he has organized NIH conferences on surrogate endpoints in medical research and on statistical methods for AIDS research.
Global Health Chair Becomes UN Envoy
Former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, has appointed HMS professor Paul Farmer to serve as the UN Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti. As deputy special envoy, Farmer will help Clinton and the UN to advance the Caribbean nation’s economic and social development. He will retain his position as the Maude and Lillian Presley professor of global health and social medicine and head of that department at HMS.
Farmer has dedicated much of his career to improving healthcare in impoverished communities, including Haiti. While still a medical student, he cofounded Partners In Health (PIH), a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare in remote and poorer areas around the world. PIH is currently the largest healthcare provider in Haiti and operates a multiservice healthcare clinic in the village of Cange that includes a primary school, a surgery wing, a training program for outreach workers, a 104-bed hospital, a women’s clinic and a pediatric care facility.
New Appointments to Full Professor
The following faculty members were appointed to a full professorship in April or May.
Gregory Fricchione
Professor of Psychiatry
Massachusetts General Hospital
Fricchione’s research focuses on psychosomatic medicine and the interface of mind, brain and body. Recently he has supervised research that explores the risk of future cardiac events conferred by depression in patients soon after myocardial infarction, as well as the benefits of screening and early intervention. He has collaborated in basic research on the role of nitric oxide in macrophage behavior. As director of the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at MGH, he has organized a research agenda focused on the importance of the relationship between stress and resiliency for the propensity to health and disease using an animal model, neuroimaging and gene expression profiling in clinical studies. His clinical work has centered on novel treatment for the catatonic syndrome.
Donald Goff
Professor of Psychiatry
Massachusetts General Hospital
Goff established and directs a clinical research program at MGH integrating pharmacology, cognitive behavioral therapy, neuroimaging and genetics with the goal of enhancing understanding of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and developing new treatments. His own research is focused on glutamatergic agents to enhance cognition and improve negative symptoms of schizophrenia. He is also studying genetic predictors and biochemical mechanisms underlying the decline in function and loss of brain volume during the early stages of the illness in order to guide pharmacologic treatment. His group has pioneered the study and prevention of medical morbidity in schizophrenia resulting from medication side effects and cigarette smoking.
J. Michael Gaziano
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Gaziano is an internationally recognized chronic disease epidemiologist and trialist. His research interests include the epidemiology of chronic diseases in aging populations, particularly the behavioral, molecular and genetic determinants of coronary artery disease and stroke. He is also interested in the adverse impact of vascular disease on other organ systems, including cognitive function and renal disease. He is chief of the Division of Aging at BWH and directs the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center at the VA Boston, a national epidemiology and trial center funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Gaziano serves as principal investigator for the Physicians’ Health Study, a longitudinal cohort of more than 29,000 physicians. He is a practicing preventive cardiologist.
Susan Hankinson
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Hankinson is a cancer epidemiologist who studies the etiology and prevention of breast and ovarian cancer. She has conducted a wide range of projects to evaluate the role of endogenous hormones such as sex steroids, insulin-like growth factors and prolactin in breast cancer etiology in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women. She also is interested in the application of biomarkers in epidemiologic research. She is the current principal investigator of the Nurses’ Health Study cohort and a senior investigator working with the Nurses’ Health Study II cohort, two large ongoing prospective studies in women.
Frank Hu
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Hu’s research focuses on epidemiology and prevention of obesity and type 2 diabetes. His major interests include nutritional and genetic determinants of diabetes and the role of gene–environment interactions in the development of diabetes. His research uses an interdisciplinary approach that leverages resources from large cohort studies conducted in the United States and China and integrates novel biochemical and genetic markers into nutritional and lifestyle epidemiologic studies. Hu is also a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at HSPH.
Lewis Kirshner
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
VA Boston Healthcare System
Kirshner has been responsible for teaching psychodynamic psychiatry at the Harvard South Shore Residency Program. He recently developed a clinical program using an evidence-based model called Mentalization Therapy. As a member and training analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, he has published widely on the scientific and conceptual bases of psychoanalysis. A particular focus of his research has been on French psychoanalysis, including the work of Jacques Lacan. His recent book, Having a Life: Self Pathology After Lacan, discusses comparative psychoanalytic approaches to severe personality disorders.
Matthew Meyerson
Professor of Pathology
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
The Meyerson laboratory is dedicated to discovering cancer genome alterations using microarray and sequencing platforms at the Broad Institute and mass spectrometric genotyping at the Center for Cancer Genome Discovery at DFCI. Current efforts focus on understanding the role of EGFR mutation and of amplification of lineage-specific oncogenes, including NKX2-1, in lung cancer pathogenesis. Another interest is identifying mutations in protein kinase genes and determining the effects of enzymatic inhibitors on specific mutants of EGFR. His lab has shown roles for the menin and parafibromin/hCdc73 tumor suppressor proteins in chromatin regulation and has developed a sequence-based computational subtraction method, which he and colleagues are applying to cancers and other candidate diseases.
The faculty members below were appointed to a full professorship in June.
Alberto Ascherio
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Ascherio’s research is based on prospective investigations to identify risk factors and prognostic markers for neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. His work integrates genetic, biochemical and traditional epidemiological approaches and relies on interdisciplinary collaborations with basic scientists and clinical investigators. Ascherio is also a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at HSPH.
Nicholas Christakis
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Christakis, who is also a professor of medical sociology in the Department of Health Care Policy at HMS, focuses on the social, biological and mathematical factors underlying social network structure and function. Recent work has centered on the genetics of social networks and experimental manipulations of network structure and social interaction. He also explores the clinical and policy implications of social networks. His lab collaborates with others at HMS and elsewhere at Harvard on all these topics. He teaches at Harvard College and in HMS programs related to medical education and hospice medicine.
Francesca Dominici
Professor of Biostatistics
Harvard School of Public Health
Dominici works on developing new mathematical and statistical methods for identifying subtle but important health risks within complex databases. She is particularly interested in developing models to better understand the health effects of air pollution and led the statistical analyses for the two large nationwide studies of particulate matter and ozone. Her contributions have helped inform current air pollution regulation in the United States. In addition, she has focused on developing statistical tools to analyze patient safety data to reduce medical errors and has worked on methods to elucidate the epidemiology of smoking patterns.
Mason Freeman
Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Freeman’s research addresses the role of lipid transport in human disease. The excessive accumulation of lipids in vascular tissue leads to atherosclerosis and the failure to transport other lipids to their appropriate cellular or extracellular location produces human diseases ranging from neonatal respiratory failure to life-threatening ichthyoses. The proteins that transport these lipids in and out of cells, including scavenger receptors and members of the A class of ABC transport proteins, have been the major focus of the Freeman lab. In addition to the basic science work on lipid transport, Freeman runs a clinical lipid disorders clinic and a translational medicine program at MGH whose goal is to bring experimental medicines into their first test of efficacy in humans. This work encompasses a broad spectrum of human diseases, ranging from diabetes to muscle disorders.
Russ Hauser
Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Hauser’s research centers on environmental risk factors for infertility and adverse pregnancy outcomes, specifically the potential role played by human exposure to chemicals that disrupt endocrine signaling. Chemicals of interest include two modern synthetic chemicals, phthalates and bisphenol A, for which there is widespread general population exposure. Other areas of research include a case–control study on environmental and genetic risk factors for testicular germ cell cancer and a longitudinal children’s study in Russia on the impact of industrial chemicals and lead on somatic growth and pubertal development. Hauser is also a professor of environmental and occupational epidemiology at HSPH.
Ciarán Kelly
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Kelly’s research focuses on gastrointestinal mucosal immunology. His studies in Clostridium difficile infection have demonstrated the critical role played by the host’s adaptive immune response in determining the clinical outcomes of infection. He also has a longstanding interest in the pathogenesis and management of celiac disease and is a founder and medical director of BID’s Celiac Center. In addition to his research work in celiac disease and C. difficile infection he also cares for patients with intestinal infectious and inflammatory disorders and participates actively in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.
Matcheri Keshavan
Professor of Psychiatry
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Keshavan’s work deals with neurobiological alterations, especially those related to altered brain development, in the early course of schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, and the people at risk for these disorders. These studies utilize neuroimaging and brain electrophysiological approaches to investigate brain structure, function and neurochemistry. He is also involved in studies of pharmacological and psychosocial interventions in early schizophrenia. At HMS, he plans to collaboratively develop a clinical and research program with a major emphasis on early detection and interventions in early course psychotic disorders.
Deborah Pavan Langston
Professor of Ophthalmology
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Langston was the first woman resident in ophthalmology at Harvard and eventually the first woman director of the Cornea Service. Her primary laboratory and clinical interests are in the ocular viral infections herpes simplex and zoster (shingles). Her work contributed to the FDA approval of three drugs for these blinding corneal diseases. She has published more than 250 original articles, reports and chapters, and many books, one in its sixth edition in five languages.
Richard Lee
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Lee’s research integrates bioengineering and molecular biology approaches to yield novel approaches to cardiovascular diseases. His laboratory studies protein and cell delivery strategies for regenerative medicine, including the application of nanotechnology to regulate cellular fates. Lee is also a practicing clinical cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Giovanni Parmigiani
Professor of Biostatistics
Harvard School of Public Health
Parmigiani’s principal research interest is the development of statistical and computational methods to capture and assess biomedical data, including models and software for predicting a person’s risk of cancer. He has helped devise several bioinformatics software tools and programs. These include BRCAPRO, which is used in genetic counseling of families at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and BayesMendel, a suite of tools that covers a broad range of familial risk prediction tasks in breast, ovarian, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers. He was also appointed chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Ellis Neufeld
Professor of Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital Boston
Neufeld focuses on patient-oriented research in nonmalignant hematology. His laboratory studies candidate genes for inherited blood disorders, and clinical research projects include studies of iron overload in thalassemia and treatment strategies for immune thrombocytopenia. His clinical interests include bleeding and thrombotic disorders of children and genetic disorders of red cells and platelets. He is an active member of Harvard Catalyst, serving as the pediatrics program leader and as Children’s institutional representative.
Jack Shonkoff
Professor of Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital Boston
Shonkoff’s work focuses on the early childhood roots of disparities in learning, behavior, and health—and the leveraging of science to inform more effective, evidence-based public policy and practice. As founding director of the University-wide Center on the Developing Child, he is building a broad-based, multidisciplinary group of investigators that crosses the biological and social sciences in the service of studying the causal mechanisms that link early life adversity to later problems with poor educational achievement, reduced economic productivity and greater vulnerability to disease. Shonkoff is also the Julius B. Richmond FAMRI professor of child health and development at HSPH and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
HMS Postdocs Become Damon Runyon Fellows
Three researchers at HMS were named Damon Runyon Fellows, out of a total of 17 nationwide. The Damon Runyon Foundation, which supports innovative cancer research, provides the three-year fellowships to “outstanding postdoctoral scientists who are conducting basic and translational cancer research.” The fellowship is specifically intended to encourage young scientists to pursue careers in cancer research by providing them with independent funding ($140,000 each) to work on innovative projects. Of the 17 new fellows, six will be named HHMI Fellows in recognition of support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Daniel Kim, HMS research fellow in genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital, in the lab of Jeannie Lee, HMS professor of genetics at MGH, received a fellowship for his study of how noncoding RNAs control gene expression during a developmental process in females called X-inactivation, which turns off genes on one of the X chromosomes. His work may provide insight into novel regulatory roles for noncoding RNAs in silencing tumor suppressor genes, while potentially revealing new therapeutic targets for the treatment of many types of cancer.
Taiowa Montgomery, HMS research fellow in genetics at MGH in the lab of Gary Ruvkun, HMS professor of genetics at MGH, received a fellowship for studying the mechanisms of gene silencing by microRNAs. In addition to having essential roles in development, microRNAs can act as oncogenes or as tumor suppressors. MicroRNAs have tremendous potential to be used therapeutically to prevent and treat cancer.
Ilan Wapinski, an HMS research fellow in systems biology in the lab of Roy Kishony, HMS associate professor of systems biology, received a fellowship for his work examining how changes in gene regulation affect cellular growth rates. Understanding these processes will help to elucidate how cancer cells can outgrow healthy ones in the human body. The Damon Runyon Foundation named Wapinski an HHMI fellow.
Leadership Changes Announced at HSPH
HSPH has announced several key changes in leadership. Karen Emmons, professor of society, human development and health, assumed the role of associate dean for research on July 1. The position is new for the School. Emmons studies behavior change and policy interventions for behavioral cancer risk factors, particularly for low-income communities. She also has expertise in cancer disparities and in efforts to increase dissemination and knowledge translation in low-resource settings. She is deputy director of the Center for Community-Based Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and associate director for the Initiative to Eliminate Health Disparities at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.
Michael Grusby, professor of molecular immunology, became the senior associate dean for academic affairs. His research interests have been on the role of a class of transcription factors called signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs) in the differentiation and function of T helper cell subsets. For the past three years, he has served as the director of the PhD in Biological Sciences in Public Health (BPH) Program within the Division of Biological Sciences and is a member of the steering committee for the Office for Educational Programs.
Linda McDonald will be joining the School’s central administration as director of the newly created Office for Strategic Priority Management. In an e-mail to the School, HSPH dean Julio Frenk said that her role will focus on the operation and management of the dean’s priorities for the School and enhancing follow-up within the Dean’s Office. McDonald has been at Harvard in a variety of capacities for 18 years. Most recently, she has been the director of Strategic Planning and Development for the Department of Health Policy and Management and the Division of Public Health Practice.
Systems Biologist Honored as University Professor
Harvard president Drew Faust has named HMS researcher Marc Kirschner a University Professor, Harvard’s highest professorial distinction. The University Professorship was created in 1935 to honor “individuals of distinction ... working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross the conventional boundaries of the specialties.”
Kirschner, who is also the Carl W. Walter professor of systems biology and chair of that department at HMS, was appointed to the John Franklin Enders University Professorship.
His work investigates many areas of modern cell biology, including how cells divide and generate their shape and how embryos develop. Kirschner’s laboratory is also studying the frog embryo as a model system of cell development, watching how it orchestrates numerous signals to create a final, complex organism. Understanding cell morphogenesis is vital to understanding normal cell development and cell regeneration. It also sheds light on cancer.
Kirschner is a pioneer in studying the evolutionary origins of the vertebrate body plan, and in particular the origins of the chordate nervous system.
Among many other honors, Kirschner received the Gairdner Foundation’s International Award in 2001. He played a key role in the founding of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program, the Systems Biology Department, and ICCB-Longwood.
Student Fellows Pursue Public Policy in Boston
Jessica Hohman, a second-year student at HMS, was among the 12 local graduate students who spent the summer working in key state and local agencies as a Rappaport Public Policy Fellow. Hohman, who is the first HMS student to receive this fellowship, worked for the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector, which is responsible for implementing the state’s landmark universal health insurance law.
Another Rappaport fellow came from HSPH. Michael Long worked at the Boston Public Schools Department focusing on expanding and improving the school breakfast program.
Hohman and Long were selected from more than 100 applicants. The Rappaport Public Policy Fellowship gives graduate students from throughout greater Boston the opportunity to help public officials address key problems and, in doing so, to learn more about how public policy is created and implemented. The fellowship is funded and administered by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.
Grants Back African American Scientists
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and Merck & Co., Inc., have awarded 37 scholarships and fellowships to African American biological and chemical science students, including two postdocs at HMS. Glenn Rowe, a research fellow in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Temitope Sodunke, a fellow in radiation oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, were each named UNCF/Merck postdoctoral science research fellows. The fellowships provide up to $85,000 for each recipient. The awards are part of the UNCF/Merck Science Initiative, a 15-year partnership. The scholarships and fellowships include financial support, hands-on training, close mentoring and networking relationships and institutional support. Recipients are chosen through a competitive application process, and candidates are selected based on their academic achievements and potential in the field of biomedical research.
NOTABLEThe Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Research & Education Foundation has named Reza Forghani, an HMS clinical fellow in radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, a recipient of an RSNA Research Fellow Grant. The title of Forghani’s research project is “Molecular Imaging of the Inflammatory Enzyme Myeloperoxidase in Murine Cerebral Ischemia.” The grant provides $50,000 for a one-year research project.
Michael Howell, director of critical care quality at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has been accepted into the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Program. He is one of 20 physicians nationally and the only one in Massachusetts to participate in the program. Howell’s project, “Preventing the Need for Rescue Care: Averting Acute Inpatient Decompensations,” is an extension of his work on the Triggers Program, BID’s model for rapid response multidisciplinary teams that quickly assess and treat potentially declining patients on the medical or surgical units. The $300,000 grant will fund Howell’s work from July 1, 2009, until the end of June 2012.
Steven Locke, HMS associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was appointed a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association at the 2009 annual meeting. The Distinguished Fellowship is awarded to outstanding psychiatrists who have made significant contributions to the psychiatric profession in at least five of the following areas: administration, teaching, scientific and scholarly publications, volunteering for mental health and medical activities of social significance, and community involvement, as well as for clinical excellence. Locke is also a faculty member in the HST program.
James O’Connell, HMS clinical instructor in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been awarded the J.H. Kanter Prize for his work to enhance health care delivery for hundreds of low-income and homeless people in Boston through the organization Healthcare for the Homeless. The inaugural prize, named for Joseph H. Kanter, a pioneering advocate for electronic medical records, is sponsored by the Health Legacy Partnership (HELP), a public–private partnership with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Tom Rapoport received the Biophysical Society’s 2010 Anatrace Membrane Protein Award for providing outstanding mechanistic insights into the processes involved in intracellular protein transport, transport of proteins across the endoplasmic reticulum membrane and membrane biogenesis. He will receive the award at the society’s annual meeting in February.
John Yeh has joined Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as the new chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. A subspecialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, he has clinical interests in infertility, irregular menstrual cycles, polycystic ovarian disease, hirsutism and complex reproductive medicine disorders. Yeh graduated from HMS and spent his residency at BID. His most recent position was at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Jeremiah (Jere) Mead, architect of the field of respiratory mechanics and professor emeritus in the Department of Environmental Health at HSPH, passed away on July 4 at a healthcare facility in Ellsworth, Maine. He was 88 years old.
Working in the 1950s with then-research fellow Mary Ellen Avery, Mead showed that fatal respiratory distress syndrome in newborns was caused by abnormal surface tension in the lungs. Their discovery led to surfactant replacement therapy, a treatment that continues to save lives.
Mead received his SB from Harvard College in 1943 and his MD from HMS in 1946. He spent two years training as an intern and assistant resident at Boston City Hospital and two years conducting research in cold-weather physiology for the Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army at a research station in Hudson’s Bay, Calif.
Mead had a 37-year career at HSPH, retiring in 1987. He began as an associate in physiology in 1950 and was appointed professor of physiology at HSPH in 1965. He was appointed the first Cecil K. and Philip Drinker professor of environmental physiology at the School in 1975. In 1990 he was awarded the Edward Livingston Trudeau Medal by the American Lung Association in recognition of his career accomplishments. In 1996, he received the HSPH Faculty Emeritus Award of Merit.
Mead was a member of the American Physiological Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sigma Xi, and the Harvard Musical Association.
A fellowship named after Mead was formed on the occasion of his retirement by his trainees, colleagues and friends. The fellowship is awarded each year to recognize an outstanding postdoctoral fellow training in respiratory biology.
Mead is survived by his wife, Dot; his brother, Judson; and four children and their families. The HSPH Department of Environmental Health is planning a memorial celebration in the fall. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be sent to the Community Health Center, 16 Community Lane, Southwest Harbor, ME 04679, or to the Southwest Harbor Public Library.
Armen Haig Tashjian Jr., HMS professor emeritus of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and HSPH professor emeritus of toxicology, died on July 3. He was 77 years old.
Tashjian graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in North Andover, Mass., before attending Yale University. He received his MD from HMS in 1957. After completing his internship and residency, he was a research fellow from 1959 to 1961 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. He returned to the Harvard medical community in 1961 as a research fellow in pharmacology at the Dental School.
Tashjian’s relationship with Harvard spanned more than four decades. At HSDM he was promoted to assistant professor of pharmacology in 1966, associate professor of pharmacology in 1969, and professor of pharmacology in 1970. At HMS, he was named professor of pharmacology in 1978 and professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology in 1987. He retired as professor emeritus in 1999.
Tashjian founded the Department of Molecular and Cellular Toxicology at HSPH. Under his guidance, this department explored the mechanisms of toxicity in environmental chemicals and therapeutic agents. He grew deeply interested in drug discovery and development during the 1990s and became a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology companies and venture capital investors, which placed him at the forefront of the interface between pharmacology, toxicology and business.
Known as a devoted teacher, Tashjian was also a highly respected researcher and loyal supporter of HMS. Working with David Golan, the HMS dean for graduate education, and several Harvard medical students, he wrote Principles of Pharmacology: The Pathophysiologic Basis of Drug Therapy, which has become a leading text for mechanism-based teaching of pharmacology worldwide.
Tashjian was the recipient of many awards, including the Astwood Award for basic scientific discoveries in skeletal biology and neuroendocrinology and the Endocrine Society’s Distinguished Leadership Award.
He is survived by his wife, Carol; his daughters, Elizabeth of Salt Lake City, Amy of New York City, and Victoria of DePere, Wis.; three grandchildren; a sister, Peggy Richards; and two nephews.
