A tribute and scientific symposium on Jan. 25 and 26 honored the memory of Stanley Korsmeyer, who was the Sidney Farber professor of pathology at HMS and Dana–Farber Cancer Institute from 1998 until his death in 2005. Also a Howard Hughes investigator since 2000, Korsmeyer advanced the understanding of programmed cell death and, in doing so, transformed the view of cancer from a disease of too much cell proliferation to one of too little cell death. As consequential as his research was, the speakers at the memorial made clear that the impact of the man was equally due to his humanity and his profound though gentle influence on others.
Introduced by DFCI president Edward Benz, David G. Nathan, president emeritus of DFCI, described his hiring of Korsmeyer as “the most important single recruitment that I would ever make in my entire career.” Nathan recounted that Korsmeyer’s name had come up unsolicited three times in conversations with scientists whom Nathan knew and respected. When Nathan finally met Korsmeyer, he was impressed by the younger man’s visionary intellect and total lack of pretense. Nathan decided then that Korsmeyer would make a wonderful addition to Dana–Farber and HMS.
“The reason I want to get him is not just for the science,” Nathan said, relating his thoughts at the time, “I want to get him because I know he will have an enormous influence on the entire community, both at Dana–Farber and at Harvard Medical School. And when there’s tension, which there always is, and when there’s trouble, which there always is, and when there’s arguing and bickering, that man will come into a group and settle it immediately down. And that’s exactly what he did. And it took him about 20 minutes. As soon as he was on the scene with us, there was calm, and everybody was happy.”
Though Korsmeyer’s death was an immense loss, Nathan said, “we haven’t lost his spirit, and we haven’t lost what he meant to us. We haven’t lost that little glow of character; that has stayed. And the happiest thing in my life, if you will, to get over the tragedy, is that that name is never going to die at Harvard or any place else. There will be a Stanley Korsmeyer chair here, and we will fill it with somebody who’s a wonderful scientist and has a fine character.”
Praise for that spirit was echoed in the keynote address by H. Robert Horvitz, the David H. Koch professor of biology at MIT, who outlined advances in cell-death research, giving a framework to the following day’s scientific symposium. Titled “Cell Death and Cancer: Opportunities for Therapeutic Intervention,” the scientific program featured speakers from around the country, including Junying Yuan, HMS professor of cell biology; Loren Walensky, HMS assistant professor of pediatrics at DFCI; and Gregory Verdine, the Erving professor of chemistry at Harvard University.
