Past & present

(Or, how I came to be chairman of the Department of Pathology at NYU School of Medicine)

Truth be told, I started out a reluctant candidate. I had moved from Baylor College of Medicine to join the Skirball Institute in late 2002/early 2003, and was just beginning to feel settled in my new lab when Steven Burakoff, Director of the Skirball Institute, asked me to allow my name to be thrown into the candidates’ ring. I was flattered by Steve’s suggestion but had no interest in taking on a large administrative task at the time. Steve, persistent fellow that he is, did not let the subject drop, and I finally yielded. He thought (or at least said he thought) that I had the kind of vision that would be ideal for this particular job, so I began to think seriously about the department and Pathology as a discipline.

I am an idealistic pragmatist, or a pragmatic idealist, depending on the day. It was thus not uncharacteristic of me to invest a great deal of time and energy studying this department (and other pathology departments around the country) before deciding to take on such a large responsibility as the chairmanship. To my surprise, I found myself becoming enamored of the idea of leading NYU’s Department of Pathology into its next life stage because three sterling qualities manifested themselves at every turn:

• Scholarship: we have a core of excellent scientists and clinicians in the Department who are renowned for their scientific rigor and creativity and who have made key contributions to our understanding of disease.
• Setting: we are witnessing a renaissance in science here in Manhattan that is unlike anything we have seen for decades. Furthermore, both clinical and translational research require a large and diverse patient population, and few cities in the world provide the patient resources of New York. All this, in addition to being part of NYU, which has been catapulted into the cadre of elite universities under the leadership of John Sexton, a true scholar himself.
• Spirit: a number of our best scientists and clinicians are naturally collegial people who are in academics because they are stimulated by intellectual inquiry and want to contribute to both the creation and dissemination of knowledge. They are loyal to the School but not complacent, and they share an aspiration and commitment to make the Department of Pathology home to the next generation of intellectual leaders.

In short, the foundation is in place for us to become one of the best pathology departments in the country. We have certainly been there before: the Department of Pathology at NYU was once famous as a hotbed of immunological research (then carried out under the rubric of Experimental Pathology), and was widely regarded as the best in the country. Through this passed a long list of immunology luminaries including Baruj Benacerraf, Lewis Thomas, Philip Gell, Robert McCluskey, Lloyd Old, Jonathan Uhr, and Michael Heidelberger, among others. In fact, many of our current leaders of science were educated at NYU or worked here: Eric Kandel comes immediately to mind as having done both. Our mission is to once again create the conditions in which such science and scientists will flourish.

The hospitals of NYU Medical Center — Tisch, Bellevue, the VA, and The Hospital for Joint Diseases— also have a storied history. Most of you know that the quality of pathology services affects numerous clinical departments: for example, pathologic diagnoses guide medical, surgical, and oncologic treatment decisions. Clinical studies and translational research will also rise or fall on the basis of the diagnostic acumen of our pathologists. The cause of AIDS, for instance, was discovered because one of our NYU pathologists was using EM to study a tissue sample and recognized signs of retroviral infection. The astute observations of another of our faculty led to the elucidation of the pathogenesis of toxic shock syndrome. Virtually all studies involving patient material benefit from strong scientific and clinical colleagues in Pathology, so an investment in clinicians will have broad ramifications.

In sum, I believe we have a unique opportunity ahead of us, and we can create an environment in which patient care, basic research, translational research, graduate and post-graduate education, and the clinical practice of pathology will flourish.