A great Science Loss

Posted on January 25, 2008
Filed Under Health, Science |

With all the talk and controversy surrounding the death of Heath Ledger recently, another death also happened which was a devastating blow to the scientific community.

The death of Dr. Judah Folkman.

Dr. Folkman is considered the founding father of the concept of Angiogenesis-which at the time was a radical idea that cancer cells could hijack a patient’s own blood vessels, and through the use of angiogenic factors (chemical factors) support the growth of blood vessels which are diverted to give nutrients to feed the growing tumor. He proposed this idea in 1971 and published this in the New England Journal of Medicine. The idea at the time was highly controversial and for more than two decades was not well received. Nevertheless Dr. Folkman continued to push the idea of Angiogenesis, to which everyone in the cancer community owes a debt of gratitude, as it turned out to be correct, and started the development of anti-angiogenic drugs as a treatment for cancer. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Folkman not only came up with the idea of Angiogenesis but he also purified the first angiogenic protein from a tumor, discovered the first angiogenesis inhibitors and initiated clinical trials of anti-angiogenic therapy. Today, angiogenesis inhibitors have received FDA approval in the U.S. for cancer and for the treatment of macular degeneration and are also approved in 27 other countries.

Dr. Folkman was born in Cleveland in 1933, and graduated cum laude from Ohio State University, in 1953. He continued his education at Harvard Medical School, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1957. Dr. Folkman began his surgical residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital and served as chief resident in surgery from 1964-1965. Dr. Folkman was the author of 389 original peer-reviewed papers and 106 book chapters and monographs. He also held honorary degrees from fifteen universities and was the recipient of numerous national and international awards. He had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Folkman died of an apparent heart attack, he was 74.

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