First Dean for Education Named at HMS
Thomas Michel, HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has been appointed the first dean for education at HMS. In his new position, he holds the Federman Chair for Medical Education and is a key adviser to Dean Jeffrey Flier on the broader aspects of education at HMS. He also works with the School’s existing educational leadership, including Jules Dienstag, dean for medical education, as well as other HMS leaders in graduate, global, and continuing medical education.
Michel chairs a newly formed HMS Education Council, which will bring together leaders of educational programs across Harvard, including the masters of the HMS academic societies, directors of the HMS graduate programs, hospital-based physician-educators, directors of the HST and MD–PhD programs, and leading educators from Harvard College and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Under his leadership, the HMS Education Council will coordinate activities and develop new programs across Harvard University.
Michel has served as leader of the Strategic Advisory Group on Education within the School’s strategic planning initiative. At BWH, his laboratory studies signal transduction pathways in the cardiovascular system, and he sees patients as a practicing cardiologist and clinician–teacher at BWH. Michel has been active for many years in teaching undergraduates and graduate students at Harvard and is the director of the Harvard Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine.
The creation of this new position stems from the recommendations that emerged from the strategic planning process, along with recognition of the need for better communication, coordination, and partnership among the different educational programs at HMS and across Harvard. “With the advent of Harvard’s Allston campus and with the School’s evolving relationships with its outstanding teaching hospitals and with MIT, HMS has new responsibilities for coordinating educational programs that reflect its critical, internationally recognized role in medical and graduate education,” said Flier in a message to the community. “Thomas is charged with making this happen.”
Each year, several foundations invite a limited number of HMS junior faculty and postdocs to apply for their awards. In order to be nominated, potential candidates must first apply through the HMS Faculty Fellowship Program. Updated information on the awards will be available online beginning Monday, Sept. 8, at http://medapps.med.harvard.edu/fellowships. The internal application deadline is Oct. 14. Please direct questions to Erin Cromack, Office of Academic and Clinical Affairs, 617-432-7463.
Systems Bio Innovation Awards Go to Harvard ScientistsThe Council for Systems Biology in Boston (CSB2) has named the winners of its 2008 Innovation Awards, which went to two Harvard researchers. CSB2 is a Boston-area association of academic, clinical, and industrial groups active in the areas of systems biology and systems pharmacology and is based in the HMS Department of Systems Biology.
The Merrimack–CSB2 Prize was awarded to Aneil Mallavarapu, a senior research scientist in the HMS Virtual Cell Program, for his work on little b, an open-source LISP-based language for building modular, shareable, and scalable models of biological systems. The Merrimack–CSB2 Prize is awarded annually to a young scientist for exceptional contributions to the development and application of innovative modeling and computational methods as judged by technical quality, broad utility, and fundamental theoretical insight.
“Aneil Mallavarapu is one of those rare scientific talents who combines a deep understanding of molecular and cellular biology with a mastery of computational technology,” said Jeremy Gunawardena, HMS senior lecturer on systems biology and director of the Virtual Cell Program. “His development of the little b computational infrastructure marks a key step on the road to postgenomic in silico biology and has profoundly improved our ability to construct in silico models of biological systems.”
The Pfizer–CSB2 Prize was awarded to Gavin MacBeath, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, for the development of new protein microarray methods applicable to the study of signal transduction, disease, and targeted therapy in humans.
Christine Heenan, former director of community and government relations at Brown University and founder and president of the Clarendon Group, a communications and government relations consulting firm, has been appointed vice president for government, community and public affairs at Harvard University, effective Oct. 1. She will oversee Harvard’s relations with federal, state, and local government; coordinate activities involving the University’s neighboring communities; and manage communications and media relations for the University.
New Appointments to Full and Named ProfessorshipsThe following HMS faculty members were appointed to a full or named professorship in winter 2008.
Michael Eck
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Dana–Farber Cancer Institute
The Eck laboratory studies the structure and regulation of tyrosine kinases using X-ray crystallography and other biochemical approaches. Major research interests include focal adhesion kinase, EGFR, Src, and Jak family kinases and their dysregulation in cancer. Eck also studies the structural biology of actin assembly by formin family proteins.
Michael Freeman
Professor of Surgery
Children’s Hospital Boston
Freeman’s research interests are centered on understanding the molecular and cellular basis of genitourinary tract pathology. The primary focus has been on mechanisms of soluble growth factor signaling, with recent studies of the role of the lipid subcellular microenvironment in cell growth and cell survival regulation. The long-term goal is the elucidation of mechanisms of signal transduction that mediate pathophysiologic processes such as prostate cancer, bladder cancer, and congenital and acquired urologic disease. Comprehending these biochemical mechanisms at a fundamental level will provide insight into new chemoprevention and treatment options in the clinical setting.
Steven Grinspoon
Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Grinspoon’s research focuses on nutritional metabolism and the regulation of body composition and substrate metabolism from a neuroendocrine perspective. This work focused initially on the use of gonadal steroids and anabolic strategies in models of sarcopenia. More recently, he has investigated the differential regulation of subcutaneous and visceral fat depots in models of lipodystrophy and obesity. This work includes the novel use of hypothalamic releasing factors to selectively reduce visceral adiposity in patients with central
fat accumulation.
Xi He
Professor of Neurology
Children’s Hospital Boston
He’s research focuses on molecular mechanisms of cell signaling in vertebrate embryonic patterning, in cell polarity regulation, and in stem cell biology, and on the understanding of how defective cell signaling leads to cancer and other diseases.
Bruce Johnson
Professor of Medicine
Dana–Farber Cancer Institute
Johnson’s research is devoted to testing the efficacy of novel therapeutic agents against lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. His laboratory’s translational research on patients with adenocarcinoma of the lung has helped identify subsets of patients who respond differently to targeted agents and has focused on the epidermal growth factor receptor. Future research is attempting to identify additional genetic changes within the lung cancers that can then be treated with other targeted agents.
Peter Sicinski
Professor of Pathology
Harvard Medical School
Sicinski’s laboratory studies the role of cell cycle machinery in development and cancer using genetically engineered mice. His group uses the combination of molecular genetics, cell biology, and systems biology approaches to understand the interplay between different cell cycle components in physiological states and human disease.
Lois Smith
Professor of Ophthalmology
Children’s Hospital Boston
Smith’s basic research is on angiogenesis and retinal neovascularization (the most common cause of blindness in all ages). Although her work pertains to vascular changes in the retina in diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration, the main focus has been on retinopathy of prematurity, influenced by her clinical practice at Children’s. Many of her basic laboratory studies on VEGF, IGF-1, and angiopoietin in retinopathy have been translated into clinical trials.
Edward Walsh
Professor of Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital Boston
Walsh’s research has focused on the mechanism and clinical management of cardiac arrhythmias in young patients. He established and directs the Electrophysiology Division within the Cardiology Department at Children’s, which has pioneered techniques for catheter ablation of arrhythmias in pediatric patients and young adults with complex congenital heart defects. He and his colleagues have also developed novel techniques for implantation of pacemakers and defibrillators in children when conventional implant techniques are precluded by small body size. He has participated in a wide range of collaborative protocols aimed at predicting and preventing sudden cardiac death in the young.
Ross Zafonte
Earle P. and Ida S. Charlton Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Spaulding Rehabilitation Center
Zafonte seeks to understand and develop novel prognostic and therapeutic techniques for traumatic brain injury (TBI). The findings from this work have noted population-based recovery differences based on duration of posttraumatic amnesia and imaging data. Most recently, his laboratory work has established gender-based differences with environmental enrichment and oxidative stress and has defined the role of atypical antipsychotics, dopaminergic, and cholinergic medications upon the recovery process. This work has resulted in multiple clinical trials, including the largest ongoing therapeutic trial for TBI-COBRIT (citicoline brain injury treatment). Zafonte is also head of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Spaulding.
The following HMS and HSPH faculty members were appointed to a full or named professorship in spring 2008.
David Altshuler
Professor of Genetics and Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
By combining population genetics, genomics, epidemiology, and medicine, Altshuler’s lab has developed approaches to discover novel genes contributing to common human diseases. One major focus has been to characterize human genome sequence variation and to create genomic resources and methods to test the majority of common sequences in human populations in genomewide association studies. The second major focus is to apply these methods to understand type 2 diabetes and other common diseases. In the last year his lab and collaborators used this approach to discover more than two dozen novel genomic loci contributing to type 2 diabetes, blood cholesterol, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, autism, and other diseases. Altshuler is also a founding member of the Broad Institute.
Alberto Ascherio
Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition in the Departments of
Epidemiology and Nutrition
Harvard School of Public Health
Ascherio’s research group investigates risk factors and early diagnosis of neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s, MS, and ALS. At the core of this work is a series of prospective investigations that integrate genetic, biochemical, and traditional epidemiological approaches, and an interdisciplinary team including basic scientists, epidemiologists, and clinical investigators.
William Brugge
Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Brugge is a therapeutic endoscopist at MGH interested in the endoscopic diagnosis and detection of early pancreatic cancer. His research has focused on the use of a combination of biomarkers and advanced imaging techniques to differentiate benign, premalignant, and malignant cystic neoplasms of the pancreas. Based on the results of a recently completed multicenter trial, he has demonstrated a method for the ablation of cystic neoplasms of the pancreas using injected ethanol.
Gabriel Corfas
Professor of Neurology and Otology and Laryngology
Children’s Hospital Boston
Corfas’s research focuses on the role of glial cells in the nervous system and the mechanisms by which neurons and glia communicate. Using molecular tools, Corfas has identified key signaling pathways that mediate neuron–glia interactions. This work also led to the discovery of new mechanisms by which receptor tyrosine kinases regulate gene expression and cell fate. Using genetically modified mice, Corfas’s research uncovered critical roles of glia in nervous system development, function, and maintenance. His research also shows that alterations in glial cells could be an important contributing factor to diseases such as neuropathies, neuropsychiatric disorders, and deafness.
John Guinan
Professor of Otology and Laryngology
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Guinan’s research has concentrated on the reflexes of the peripheral auditory system. One focus has been the acoustic stapedius reflex, the middle-ear muscle that responds to sound in humans. A second focus is the medial olivococh-lear efferent fibers, a feedback system that allows the brain to control cochlear transduction. His other areas of research include cochlear mechanics and otoacoustic emissions, which are sounds emitted by the ear during the process of hearing. He has also been involved in showing that certain vestibular fibers respond to sound and in developing this response into a vestibular test.
Margaret Kenna
Professor of Otology and Laryngology
Children’s Hospital Boston
Kenna, a pediatric otolaryngologist specializing in deaf and hard-of-hearing children, was the cofounder of the first cochlear implant program at Children’s Hospital Boston. Her research involves identifying the genetic, viral, and anatomical causes of congenital hearing loss, including studies of the GJB2 gene, congenital cytomegalovirus, and anatomical inner ear abnormalities. Her current research on Usher syndrome (USH) involves collaboration between ophthalmology, genetics, and the parents of USH children, both at CHB and several other pediatric sites.
Jonathan Kruskal
Professor of Radiology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Kruskal’s research focuses on elucidating the in vivo cellular mechanisms associated with formation and growth of hepatic colorectal cancer metastases. He utilizes molecular imaging techniques to study microvascular flow, endothelial cell function, and dynamic tumor–host cell interactions in models of invasive and inhibited colon cancer cell growth. He has also led a wide range of abdominal imaging investigations involving liver tumors, colorectal and functional bowel imaging, and virtual colonography.
Marcy MacDonald
Professor of Neurology
Massachusetts General Hospital
MacDonald’s laboratory focuses on inherited diseases of the nervous system, utilizing the genetics research paradigm. MacDonald and her colleagues have used -genotype–-phenotype studies in humans to discover gene mutations that cause Huntington’s disease, neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis, benign hereditary chorea, and other disorders, and her group has pioneered the use of genetic knock-in mouse models that precisely replicate the human disease mutations to delineate critical early steps in pathogenesis. Genetic studies of Huntington’s disease and neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis in humans and mice aim to reveal genes that modify the onset of early disease events, providing validated targets for the development of effective interventions.
James Maguire
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Maguire has rejoined the faculty at BWH, where he will focus on practice and teaching of clinical infectious diseases. He has a special interest in parasitology and tropical public health. Before returning to Boston, he served as chief of the Parasitic Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and director of the Division of International Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. His research includes clinical and epidemiological studies of Chagas disease in Latin America and leishmaniasis in Brazil and Bangladesh.
Kun Ping Lu
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Lu’s research focuses on elucidating how phosphorylation controls cellular processes under physiological and pathological conditions. His work led to the discovery of a new enzyme called Pin1 that regulates protein structures after phosphorylation, thereby having a major impact on the function of many important regulators in diverse cellular processes. His laboratory has also documented that deregulation of Pin1 plays a critical role in the development of a growing number of human diseases, most notably cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Understanding the mechanisms of Pin1 function may lead to the development of new therapies.
Steven Rauch
Professor of Otology and Laryngology
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Infirmary
Rauch is a member of the otology faculty at MEEI, where he specializes in disorders of hearing and balance and is director of the MEEI Balance Center. He chairs an NIH-sponsored multicenter clinical trial of corticosteroid treatment for sudden deafness. His other primary area of investigation is measurement of vestibular function in Meniere’s disease. He leads a team developing vestibular evoked-myogenic potential testing for diagnosis and management of this disorder. He currently serves on the advisory council of the NIH Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders and the Council of Scientific Trustees of the Deafness Research Foundation. He is president-elect of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology.
Anthony Rosenzweig
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Rosenzweig uses genetic models generated through somatic gene transfer or germline manipulation to address questions relevant to the two most common forms of heart disease: atherosclerotic vascular disease and heart failure. In both conditions, his research has focused on signaling mechanisms important to the pathophysiology of these conditions. A particular interest has been pathways controlling cardiomyocyte survival and growth and the intersection of these with pathways controlling cardiac metabolism. At BID, he is the director of cardiovascular research and associate chief of the Cardiovascular Division.
Kevin Staley
Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy
Professor of Neurology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Staley seeks to elucidate the cellular and network processes that initiate seizures in order to develop better treatments for epilepsy. There are two main projects in the lab. The first, research on mechanisms of neuronal ion transport, has led to a new treatment for neonatal seizures that is undergoing a collaborative clinical trial at Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and MGH. The second project is a study of the causal relationships between neuronal plasticity and seizures, with the goal of manipulating this plasticity to achieve long-term, drug-free reductions in seizure frequency.
Michael Starnbach
Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
Harvard Medical School
Starnbach’s research involves the interaction of pathogenic bacteria and the mammalian hosts that they infect. Many virulence factors have been identified that allow bacteria to survive and replicate within the mammalian host. Starnbach is studying the immune consequences of these survival strategies, particularly the recognition of bacterial infection by T cells. Some of the organisms under study in Starnbach’s lab are the food-borne pathogens Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella typhimurium, and Shigella flexneri, as well as the sexually transmitted bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis.
Matthew Waldor
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Lateral gene transfer has played a major role in the evolution of pathogenic bacteria because most virulence factors are encoded on mobile genetic elements. Waldor’s lab studies three of these elements linked to virulence: CTX phage, an integrating filamentous phage that encodes cholera toxin, the principal virulence factor of Vibrio cholerae; SXT, a V. cholerae–derived integrating conjugative element that encodes multiple antibiotic resistance genes; and Stx phage, a lambda-like phage that encodes Shiga toxin, the principal virulence factor of E. coli O157. Bacterial genomics has revealed that many prokaryotes, including V. cholerae, have more than one chromosome. The lab also studies mechanisms that control and coordinate the replication and segregation of the two V. cholerae chromosomes.
Eric Winer
Professor of Medicine
Dana–Farber Cancer Institute
Winer is a clinician, clinical leader, educator, and researcher who has devoted his entire career to breast cancer. His research is focused on developing new treatments for individuals with breast cancer, with an emphasis on individualization of patient care and the identification of treatments that are well tolerated. His work is collaborative by nature, and Winer works extensively with a multidisciplinary group of colleagues at Harvard, around the country, and throughout the world.
Michael Wolfe
Professor of Neurology
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Wolfe investigates the molecular basis of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in an effort to identify effective approaches for pharmacological intervention. Special emphasis has been on gamma-secretase, a membrane-embedded protease complex that produces the amyloid-beta peptide found in the cerebral deposits of Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, the Wolfe lab has also been focusing on the role of RNA splicing in dementias and targeting such splicing events as a therapeutic strategy.
Herman Kalman “Chip” Gold, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, died on March 1. He was 67.
Gold received his BS in 1961 from the College of William and Mary and his MD in 1965 from Duke University School of Medicine. After training at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the National Institutes of Health, he joined the HMS community as a research fellow in cardiology at MGH in 1969. He went on to spend more than three decades at MGH, serving as an instructor in medicine from 1971 to 1972, assistant professor in medicine from 1972 to 1978, and associate professor of medicine from 1978 to 2008.
Gold, who was highly skilled at interventional procedures, directed the cardiac catheterization laboratory at MGH. He was an early proponent of using nitroglycerin for treating acute heart failure, a common practice once thought to be dangerous.
In addition to his commitments to the catheterization laboratory and the demands of his clinical service, Gold also directed research. His work on antibody administration to platelets laid the groundwork for treatment still used to control coronary thrombosis. He also studied the use of plasminogen activators in the treatment of heart attacks, coronary plaque progression, and vascular response to stent placement.
Gold is survived by his wife, Barbara Nath, HMS assistant professor of medicine and a member of the MGH Gastrointestinal Unit; daughter, Lisa; son, Jonathan; and brother, Philip Gold. Memorial contributions may be made to the MGH Cardiac Unit c/o Elizabeth Drolet, MGH Development Office, 165 Cambridge St., Suite 600, Boston, MA 02114, or the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Registry, 800 Yamoto Rd., Boca Raton, FL 33431.
Paul Goldhaber, dean of HSDM from 1968 to 1990, died July 14 from complications of pancreatic cancer. He was 84.
As dean, Goldhaber oversaw major changes in Harvard’s dental curriculum and ensured that the student body became more ethnically and racially diverse. He encouraged graduates to be more involved in public service and their communities. He added a compulsory fifth year of dental school, during which students could choose either to do research or to obtain advanced degrees from HSPH or Harvard’s Kennedy School. He also expanded the School’s subspecialty degree programs and established with HMS a combined MD–DMD program in oral surgery.
Goldhaber’s own research in bone biology ushered in a new era of dentistry, enabling tooth implantation to become a routine dental procedure. In 1966, he became full professor of periodontology; two years later he was appointed dean of the School, making him Harvard University’s first Jewish dean. He held additional leadership positions, including chair of the Dental Study Section at the National Institutes of Health and president of both the American Association of Dental Research and the International Association of Dental Research. He was a member of the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine.
Goldhaber, the son of Polish immigrants, was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. During World War II, he enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army while attending City College of New York and New York University College of Dentistry through the Army Specialized Training Program. He obtained his DDS degree in 1948. Following active duty during the Korean War as a first lieutenant in the Dental Corps, he completed his undergraduate studies at City College in 1954 and obtained his BS degree. That same year he completed specialty training in periodontology at Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery and moved to Boston to begin his career at Harvard.
Goldhaber is survived by his wife Ethel Renée Gurland Goldhaber and sons Samuel Goldhaber, HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Joshua Goldhaber, professor of medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Dr. Paul Goldhaber Fund at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, 188 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115.
Julius Richmond, professor emeritus of health policy at HMS and HSPH, died at home on July 27 at age 91. He was best known for his roles as U.S. Surgeon General and the first director of the national Head Start program. Trained in pediatrics and child development, he was a tireless advocate for introducing psychosocial development into pediatric education, research, and services.
Richmond received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois in 1937 and his MD from the University of Illinois School of Medicine in 1939. He served in the Army Air Forces as a flight surgeon from 1942 to 1946, then returned to the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Illinois and was director of the Institute of Juvenile Research in Chicago.
In 1953, Richmond became chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, where he rose to the position of dean. During his tenure, he completed collaborative research with Bettye Caldwell on the development of young children growing up in poverty, which led to his appointment in 1965 as the first director of the national Head Start program. He also served as assistant director for health affairs at the Office of Economic Opportunity and directed the Community Health Centers program.
As U.S. Surgeon General and assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from 1977 to 1981, he established quantitative health goals for the nation for the next decade—a process later institutionalized by the government. A committed advocate, he also chaired the steering committee of the Forum on the Future of Families and Children of the National Academy of Sciences from 1987 to 1993.
Richmond served in a number of prominent positions in the Harvard community. He was director of Judge Baker Children’s Center from 1971 to 1977 and, from 1983 to 1988, was director of the Division of Health Policy Research and Education at Harvard University. He also served as professor of child psychiatry and human development at HMS as well as chair of psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Boston.
Richmond received numerous honors, including the C. Anderson Aldrich Award of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Gustav O. Lienhard Award and the Walsh McDermott Medal of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the David E. Rogers Award of the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Heinz Award for Public Policy, and many honorary degrees. In addition, the highest honor given by HSPH is named after him—the Julius B. Richmond Award.
“Julius Richmond’s contributions to medicine and public health are nothing short of legendary,” said Allan Brandt, the Kass professor of the history of medicine at HMS and dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. “He was a tireless and committed advocate for children and their well-being, here in the U.S. and around the globe. As a result of his remarkable work, as a pediatrician, as a public servant, and as a champion for children and their families, millions now lead better lives.”
“Through his many important roles in the academy and in government, Julius Richmond did as much to improve the health of American citizens as anyone in the last century,” added Jim Yong Kim, chair of the HMS Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. “But by far the greatest beneficiaries of his life’s work were impoverished children and their parents in the United States and throughout the world.”
Richmond was predeceased by his wife Rhee and his son Dale. He is survived by his wife Jean Berger Richmond; two sons, Charles (married to Jean) of Indianapolis, and Barry (married to Dorothy Anne) of Bethesda, Md.; two stepsons, Steven Berger (married to Elizabeth) of West Lafayette, Ind., and Michael Berger (married to Barbara) of Detroit; four grandsons, Joshua, Jay, Nathaniel, and Ian; and five step-granddaughters, Shelly, Heather, Deborah, Shauna, and Miriam.
A memorial service is planned for Monday, Oct. 27, 10 a.m., at the Harvard Club of Boston, 374 Commonwealth Ave. Memorial contributions may be made to The Dale and Rhee Richmond Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o University of Chicago, 5801 South Ellis Street, 3rd Floor, Chicago, IL 60637; or the AAP–Dale Richmond/Justin Coleman Award Fund, American Academy of Pediatrics, Development Lockbox, 38367 Eagle Way, Chicago, IL 60678-1383.
Robert Utiger, HMS clinical professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, died on June 29. He was 76.
Utiger received his medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 1957, followed by postgraduate training in internal medicine and endocrinology at Washington University and the National Institutes of Health. He served as chief of endocrinology at both the University of Pennsylvania and University of North Carolina Schools of Medicine. He joined the HMS faculty as a clinical professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1989.
An expert on thyroid function tests and an early proponent of the health benefits of Vitamin D, he co-edited Werner & Ingbar’s The Thyroid: A Fundamental and Clinical Text, served as deputy editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, and as editor of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and Clinical Thyroidology.
Utiger’s own research focused on pituitary–thyroid function and disease. He developed radioimmunoassays for thyrotropin, triiodothyronine, and thyrotropin-releasing hormone, and used these assays to develop new information about the physiology and pathophysiology of the hypothalamic–pituitary–-thyroid axis. He was one of the first to recognize the important role played by the activation of thyroxine by the iodothyronine deiodinases. He published more than 100 scientific papers and held prominent positions on various organization boards and committees.
Utiger is survived by his wife, Sally (Baldwin) Utiger; two daughters, Jane Lyon Utiger of Fort Collins, Colo., and Nancy Baldwin Murphy (and husband, Mark) of Hampstead, NH; a son, David Frey Utiger (and his wife, Karen) of Peru, Vt.; three grandchildren, a nephew, and six nieces.
Contributions in his memory can be made to Williams College, c/o Development Office, 75 Park Street, Williamstown, MA 01267 (e-mail: alumni.relations@Williams.edu) or to the Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 1228, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.
