Development Matters and Progress Notes

Honoring One of the Nation’s Greatest Cancer Pioneers: An Endowed Professorship Named for Peter C. Nowell, M.D.

In a long-anticipated honor for Peter C. Nowell, M.D. ’52, the Lasker Award-winning Penn lumi­nary who co-discovered the Phila­delphia chromosome, an endowed professorship has been established in his name. Kojo S. Elenitoba-Johnson, M.D., will be the first to hold the Nowell chair. The chair was made possible through a collaborative effort by faculty, some of whom trained with Dr. Nowell, and myriad donors coming together from a broad swath of the Penn community. Many donors are, in fact, long-time supporters of the Abramson Cancer Center, for which Dr. Nowell served as its first director beginning in 1973.

“I am deeply gratified that such stalwart supporters in our fight against cancer have chosen to honor the groundbreaking work that Dr. Nowell has contributed to oncology, innovations that shifted the cancer paradigm decades ago and that rever­berate now in cancer immunotherapy,” says Chi V. Dang, M.D., Ph.D., the John H. Glick, M.D., Abramson Cancer Center Di­rector’s Professor and director of the Abramson Cancer Center. 

The 87-year-old Dr. Peter Nowell – who holds the Gaylord P. and Mary Louise Harnwell Emeritus Professorship of Pathol­ogy and Laboratory Medicine – along with his research partner, the late David Hungerford, Ph.D., discovered the Philadelphia chromosome in 1960. This finding, an abnormally small chro­mosome in the cancerous white blood cells of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), was considered a watershed moment in cancer research, demonstrating the genetic basis for cancer, which ran counter to prevailing thought at the time. 

Their revolutionary work also formed the foundation for the clinical trials for Gleevec®, the Novartis Pharmaceuticals drug that received FDA approval in 2001 and has since stabilized disease in 95% of treated CML patients and which has been approved to treat 10 different kinds of cancer. In 1998, Dr. Nowell shared the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award, the nation’s highest honor for biomedical research, with the Uni­versity of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Alfred G. Knudson Jr. 

Dr. Nowell was first to show that bone marrow transplantation was effective in irradiated animals, and his work also helped to pave the way for the current revolutionary advancements in CAR T cancer immunotherapy that we are seeing today: He observed that a plant protein, known as PHA, was capable of stimulating mitosis. This knowledge later proved essential for culturing white blood cells – results arguably as important as the Philadelphia chromosome discovery. Later in his career, he developed the clonal evolution model of cancer: cancer cells incessantly accumulate mutations that yield a survival advan­tage and thus are regulated by natural selection.

In addition to his service as the first cancer center director at Penn, Dr. Nowell was chair of the Department of Pathology from 1967 to 1973. He championed scientific and medical educa­tion: achievements in which, as he has often said, he takes the greatest pride. He provided time in the lab, and held lab picnics for elementary and high school students – particularly those with less direct access to educational resources. He mentored several prominent faculty members and was known for turning every question or interaction into a learning experience – en­lightening rather than intimidating – and, in the process, model­ing how to be a complete physician-researcher and mentor to peers, fellows, and students.

The inaugural Nowell chair-holder, Dr. Kojo Elenitoba­Johnson, is an international leader in the field of hematopa­thology, molecular pathology, and mass spectrometry- driven proteomics. He is also the founding director of Penn Medicine’s Center for Person­alized Diagnostics and chief of the Division of  Molecular and Genomic Pathology. His laboratory at the University of Michigan is credited with having identified several re­current genetic abnormalities linked to the development and progression of a number of lymphoma subtypes.

 “Dr. Elenitoba-Johnson is an outstanding investigator whose research has already had significant impact, and I am excited by the prospect of future innovations – as transformative as Dr. Nowell’s – arising from his work,” said J. Larry Jameson, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president for the Health System and dean of the Perelman School of Medicine. 

He has received several awards, including the Outstanding Teaching Award in Anatomic Pathology from the University of Utah (1999 and 2003), the Ramzi Cotran Young Investigator Award from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pa­thology, and the American Society for Investigative Pathology Outstanding Investigator Award. He was recognized in Best Doctors in America from 2003 to 2014 and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Elenitoba-Johnson earned his M.D. degree from the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, in Lagos, Nigeria. Subsequently, he went to the Brown University School of Medicine for his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology and served as chief resident. He then moved on to the National Cancer Institute to complete a fellowship in hematopathology, as well as the Leadership Development for Physicians in Academic Health Centers program at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Before arriving at Penn, he held the Henry C. Bryant Professorship at the University of Michigan and served as di­rector of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory there.

“Endowed chairs are a critical part of a thriving academic medical center,” explained Dean Jameson. “I am particularly delighted that the Nowell Chair has allowed us to attract a clinician-scientist of the caliber of Dr. Elenitoba-Johnson – who brings a natural continuation of Peter’s work – as well as honor Dr. Peter Nowell: the first face of cancer research at Penn, who ushered in the modern era of cancer research.”

^{Peter Nowell received the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute in 2010.}

The President's Distinguished Professorships

Endowed chairs support the lifeblood of any great univer­sity: its eminent faculty. Providing the resources to recruit and retain the finest minds, funds from these chairs also protect vi­tal clinical, research, and education endeavors in times of fi­nancial uncertainty. Today, there is a new opportunity to estab­lish a fully endowed chair with a gift of only $2.25 million – rather than the usual full $3 million commitment.

In early 2014, Penn President Amy Gutmann announced an ambitious plan, as part of her Penn Compact 2020 Presidential Initiative, to establish 50 new endowed chairs. The goal of the President’s Distinguished Professorship Fund is to recruit and retain eminent multidisciplinary faculty.

Penn Medicine Trustee partners George Weiss, W’65, HON’14, and Richard Vague joined President Gutmann’s effort: to encourage new endowed chairs, they pledged $10 million to match gifts to create new distinguished professorships. The challenge contributes $750,000 to the endowment for each new chair, so donors can establish a Presidential Distinguished Professorship with a gift of $2.25 million.

We invite you to join President Gutmann, George Weiss, and Richard Vague in helping fuel Penn Medicine’s drive from excellence to eminence. To learn more, contact Penn Medicine Development and Alumni Relations at (215) 898-0578.

PROGRESS NOTES

Send your progress notes and photos to:

Donor Relations
Penn Medicine Development and Alumni Relations
3535 Market Street, Suite 750
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3309
PennMedicine@alumni.upenn.edu

1960s

Patricia A. Gabow, M.D. ’69, was elected to the board of trust­ees of Seton Hill University, where she earned her B.A. de­gree in biology. A national leader in hospital reform and the deliv­ery of public health care, Gabow also serves on the board of trust­ees of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Listed as one of Modern Healthcare’s “50 Most Powerful Physician Executives in Health Care,” she currently serves on the federal Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Com­mission and the Health Advisory Board of the National Governors Association. A nephrologist by training, Gabow retired in 2012 after 20 years as chief executive officer of Denver Health and Hospital Authority.

1970s

Barry J. Gertz, M.D. ’79, has joined Nuvelution Pharma Inc. as chief physician scientist. He is a venture partner at Clarus Ven­tures and chief medical advisor for Relay Pharmaceuticals Inc. Before joining Clarus, he was se­nior vice president of global clini­cal development at Merck. He was instrumental in the develop­ment and approval of more than 25 new drugs and vaccines, in­cluding six new approvals in 2014, and is an author of more than a hundred scientific publi­cations and articles.

1980s

Alan F. List, M.D. ’80, was ap­pointed chair of the scientific ad­visory board of Cellular Biomed­icine Group Inc. He previously served as president and chief ex­ecutive officer of Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute. Earlier, he was executive vice president and physician-in-chief, vice deputy physician-in-chief, and chief of the malignant he­matology division at Moffitt, where he holds the Morsani En­dowed Chair. Before joining Moffitt in 2003, he was a profes­sor of medicine at the University of Arizona, where he also served as director of the leukemia and blood and marrow transplant program and the translational/clinical research program.

Stephen Ostroff, M.D. ’81, is the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Before being named to the position, Os­troff served as the FDA’s chief scientist. He led and coordinated its scientific and public health ef­forts, providing support for its regulatory science and innova­tion initiatives. Ostroff joined the FDA in 2013 as chief medical of­ficer in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and as senior public health advisor to its Office of Foods and Veteri­nary Medicine. Earlier, he had been deputy director of the Na­tional Center for Infectious Dis­eases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he was also acting director of the CDC’s Select Agent Program. While at the CDC, he focused on emerging infectious diseases, food safety, and coordination of responses to complex outbreaks. He retired from the Commis­sioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service at the rank of Rear Admiral (Assistant Surgeon General). Ostroff has also served as the director of the Bureau of Epidemiology and acting physi­cian general for the Common­wealth of Pennsylvania. 

Randall Patkin, M.D. ’85, G.M.E. ’89, is a comprehensive ophthalmologist specializing in cataract surgery, glaucoma, dia­betes, and routine eye care, based at the Eye Center of the Northshore in Salem, Mass. He received the Dr. Bennett I. Solo­mon Community Leadership Award at Cohen Hillel Acade­my’s 27th Annual Gala. Patkin has served on numerous com­mittees and is a board member of the North Shore Cataract and Laser Center.

1990s

Bruce A. Monaghan, M.D. ’90, G.M.E. ’95, an orthopaedic sur­geon, was named vice president of the 550-member medical staff of Inspira Medical Center Wood­bury, in New Jersey. He joined its medical staff in 1996 after com­pleting a fellowship in hand and microvascular surgery at the In­diana Hand Center in Indianapo­lis. A former vice president of the South Jersey Surgical Center in Mount Laurel, he currently serves as the chairman of the board of Gloucester County Sur­gical Center in Mullica Hill, a joint venture between physicians and Inspira Health Network. He is also president elect of the New Jersey Orthopaedic Society.

Steven Jay Perch, M.D. ’91, G.M.E. ’95, has joined the radia­tion oncology physician team at the Dale and Frances Hughes Cancer Center at Pocono Medi­cal Center. 

Christina M. Coughlin, M.D. ’99, Ph.D. ’99, has been ap­pointed chief medical officer of Immunocore Limited, a biotech­nology company based in Ox­fordshire, U.K., that seeks to de­velop novel drugs to treat cancer, viral infections, and autoimmune diseases. She will oversee the company’s pre-clinical and clini­cal programs. Coughlin has led multiple programs across the full spectrum of drug development. Most recently, she supervised two early-development pro­grams at Novartis, leading the program’s teams in pre-clinical pharmacology, toxicology, clini­cal pharmacology, clinical devel­opment, biomarker develop­ment, and regulatory work. Pre­viously, Coughlin had studied patient responses to tumor anti­gens at Penn Medicine under the direction of Carl June, M.D.

2000s 

Rajiv J. Shah, M.D. ’02, Ph.D., was named to the board of direc­tors of Omeros Corporation, a Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company. From 2010 to 2015, Shah served as administrator of the United States Agency for In­ternational Development. Before that, he was Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Eco­nomics and chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has also worked in senior roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is currently a dis­tinguished fellow at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where his work focuses on international development. He also sits on the board of di­rectors of Arcadia Biosciences Inc. and the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation. 

Jay R. Venkatesan, M.D. ’02, has become managing partner at Al­pine BioVentures, a venture-capi­tal firm based in Seattle. Most re­cently, he was executive vice president and general manager of Oncothyreon Inc., which he joined after it was acquired by Alpine Biosciences. Previously, he was founder, portfolio man­ager, and managing director of Ayer Capital Management. He serves on the boards of Lion Bio­technologies and AuraSense Therapeutics.

Douglas C. Fisher, M.D. ’03, M.B.A., has resigned from his position as a director on the board of Sera Prognostics, a women’s health-care company based in Salt Lake City that is in the final stages of developing a novel proteomic predictor for pre-term birth risk. Fisher has now joined the company’s man­agement team as chief business officer. He is also an execu­tive-in-residence at InterWest Partners, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif. Through­out his career, Fisher has focused on biopharmaceutical, diagnos­tic, and medical device invest­ments, working in venture capi­tal, consulting, and pharmaceuti­cal industries.

OBITUARIES

1930s

Frank R. Braden Jr., M.D ’33, Coraopolis, Pa., a retired physi­cian; May 19, 2014. He was at­tending physician in both the medical and surgical clinics of Allegheny General Hospital 1935-1941. In World War II, he served in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army, rising from 1st Lt. to Lt. Col. The public schools of Coraopolis, Neville Island, and Moon Township employed him as medical examiner from 1945 to 1978. He served as president of the medical staff of Sewickley Valley Hospital and was on the board of directors for the Allegheny County Medical Society.

1940s

Edward S. McCabe, M.D. ’42, Merion, Pa., a retired physician who was on staff at the old Pres­byterian Hospital for 35 years; June 1, 2014. He was an associate professor of medicine at Temple University. During World War II, he served as a surgeon with the U.S Army in Europe.

George R. Wade, M.D. ’43, McKinney, Tex., a retired pedia­trician who had been chief of pe­diatrics at Paoli Memorial Hospi­tal from 1968 to 1981; February 11, 2014. He was president of its medical staff 1970-1972. The hospital’s nursery was named in his honor. During World War II, Wade served as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Navy, serving in the Pa­cific theater.

James Hickman Jr., M.D. ’45, Knoxville, Tenn., a retired physi­cian; August 31, 2015. He served in the U.S. Army as a medical of­ficer during World War II, leav­ing with a rank of captain. He was the medical director of BASF, the chemical company, in Morristown, Tennessee, retiring in 1986. 

Ralph A. Jessar, M.D. ’46, G.M. ’50, a retired assistant clinical professor at the Perelman School of Medicine; April 15, 2015. He earned his B.A. degree in 1943 from Penn’s College of Arts & Sciences. He served in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant, j.g. Jessar returned to Penn in 1953 as a re­search fellow in rheumatology and joined the teaching staff as an instructor the following year. As a rheumatologist, he was a member of the research team that developed the use of corti­costeroid injections for the treat­ment of rheumatoid arthritis. He also served as chief of rheuma­tology at Graduate Hospital be­fore retiring from Penn in 1986.

John M. Stevens Jr., M.D. ’46, Cornwall, Pa., a retired psychia­trist and psychoanalyst who had maintained a practice in Philadel­phia for many years; October 7, 2014. During World War II, he served as a medical officer in the U.S. Army. He had helped set up psychiatric counseling at Penn’s Student Health Center.

Robert P. Brundage, M.D. ’47, G.M. ’51, Archbald, Pa., a retired family physician; September 5, 2014. As an undergraduate at Penn, he was a member of the football team. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War and re­ceived the Bronze Star for his service as a surgeon on the front lines in Korea. 

Samuel Mickle Fox III, M.D. ’47, Bar Harbor, Maine, a retired cardiologist and former chief of the Heart Disease Control Pro­gram of the U.S. Public Health Service; April 22, 2015. His photographic memory and knowledge of ships, as shown by an essay published in Naval Proceedings, attracted the U.S. Navy’s attention. He became a commissioned ensign of the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1942, later advancing to Commander, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy. He graduated from Haverford Col­lege in 1944. In medical school, he met Mary Alice Vann, also a student. They wed in 1949 and had four children.

Fox was acting chief of gastro­enterology at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, 1950-51, where he translated knowl­edge of heart rhythms obtained during endoscopy into an inter­est in cardiology. He then served at the Office of Naval Research in London for the Naval Forces in Europe, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean; there, he became interested in physical activity and the prevention of heart disease. He became chief of the cardiol­ogy service at the Naval Medical Center and then head of the De­partment of Clinical Investiga­tion at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit in Cairo, 1954-56. His other positions included chief of cardiology at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Va., and senior staff of the Cardi­odynamics Section at the Na­tional Heart Institute of NIH, Bethesda Naval Hospital, 1957-1962, where he developed an in-patient cardiac rehabilitation program. Fox also served as phy­sician for America’s first astro­nauts in NASA’s Project Mercury (1960-64) and monitored the first manned space mission from a tracking station in Zanzibar. During this time, he worked at the U.S. Public Health Service’s Heart Disease Control Program, where he soon became chief.

After setting up Georgetown University Hospital’s Cardiac Re­habilitation Lab, he became pro­fessor and director of the Preven­tive Cardiology Program. A long­standing member of the Ameri­can College of Sports Medicine and eventually vice president, he edited Coronary Heart Disease: Prevention, Detection, Rehabilita­tion, with Emphasis on Exercise Testing (1974), a landmark refer­ence on cardiac disease and pre­vention. Fox was president of the American College of Cardiology and was named a Distinguished Fellow of the college. He received the 1974 Eleanor Naylor Dana Award for Preventive Medicine, presented by American Health Foundation.

G. Clayton Kyle, M.D. ’47, G.M.E. ’51, an endocrinologist who specialized in diabetes; De­cember 24, 2014. He served with the C.I.A. in Munich from 1951 through 1953. A clinical associate professor when he retired from medicine, he spent his entire ca­reer at the Hospital of the Uni­versity of Pennsylvania and served as the chairman of its medical board from 1977 to 1979. Kyle resisted established norms and instead pioneered and taught innovative methods that reduced complications and extended the lives of hundreds of patients. In the early 1960s, he concluded that lowering blood glucose reduced the risk of com­plications, and he also made the observation that part of the un­derlying pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes included failure of the beta cell to produce adequate in­sulin. Because of this discovery, he was one of the first clinicians in the world to aggressively treat hyperglycemia; he also intro­duced insulin in the early stages of type 2 diabetes, to the great benefit of his patients. Kyle pub­lished original research and re­view articles on the effects of dia­betes in pregnancy and pio­neered tight control of blood sugar in pregnancy before it be­came standard practice. Through the generosity of grateful pa­tients, friends, and colleagues, Kyle founded the Penn Rode­baugh Diabetes Center, which aims to treat diabetes and pre­vent its complications in a man­ner consistent with his exacting standards and brings together di­abetes specialists, nurses, podia­trists, nutritionists, and others skilled in managing various as­pects of the illness. An associate professorship at HUP was estab­lished in Kyle’s name.

Mary Alice V. Fox, M.D. ’48, G.M.E. ’52, Bar Harbor, Maine, a retired physician; April 25, 2011. She graduated from the Women’s College of North Carolina, Greensboro, in 1944, and at­tended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. At Penn’s School of Medicine, she met her future husband, Samuel M. Fox III, M.D. ’47. She interned at the Hospital of the Medical College of Virginia and completed a resi­dency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. After accompa­nying her husband to London and Cairo, she established a pri­vate practice in Bethesda, Md., and also served in the Health Department of Montgomery County, Md. She later was Chief of Crippled Children’s Control for the State of Maryland and then went on to hold a similar position in Montgomery County. She retired in 1979.

George Henry Miller Jr., M.D. ’48, Livermore, Maine, a retired professor of urology; July 28, 2015. He served in the U.S. Navy briefly in World War II as a hos­pital corpsman and re-enlisted in 1951 as a lieutenant j.g. assigned to Great Lakes Naval Hospital. He served on the U.S.S. Consola­tion hospital ship in 1952, and was dispatched to Korea and Ja­pan for active duty. He entered the Naval Reserve in 1954. He was an instructor and assistant professor at the University of Chicago and the College of Med­icine at the University of Florida, where he founded its Division of Urology. He was promoted to as­sistant dean and full professor in 1968. From 1968 to 1976, he served as chief of staff at the VA Hospital in Gainesville, Fla. In 1976, he became chief of staff at the VA Hospital in Togus, Maine, where he remained until his re­tirement in 1990. 

David P. Morris Jr., M.D. ’48, Matthews, N.C., a retired direc­tor of the U.S. Navy’s Aerospace Medical Research Development Facility; July 16, 2014. He had earlier served as head of launch-site medical operations at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Cen­ter, Cape Canaveral. Following his career in the Navy, he worked to treat alcoholism and chemical dependency at several treatment centers.

1950s

Jaime Asch, M.D., G.M. ’51, Mexico City, an otolaryngologist; March 3, 2014.

Stanley Masters, M.D., G.M. ’51, Floral Park, N.Y., a retired ophthalmologist; July 24, 2014. He had been associated with the Long Island College Hospital.

Melvin J. Chisum Jr., M.D. ’52, Philadelphia, a retired general practitioner who later became as­sociate medical director for the old Bell Telephone Company of Philadelphia; October 22, 2014. During World War II, he served with the U.S. Army in the Pacific as a chief warrant officer. Chisum had been a member of the board of overseers of the Penn Libraries. 

Abraham L. Cohen, M.D., G.M.E. ’52, Upper Gwynedd, Pa., a retired physician; June 18, 2014. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.

James P. Geiger, M.D. ’52, San Rafael, Calif., retired chief of car­diothoracic surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center; April 16, 2015. He served 23 years with the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army, receiving several awards and decorations, includ­ing the Legion of Merit twice. His Army career included service in Europe, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, and postings across the United States from West Point, N.Y., to San Francisco. After re­tiring from the military, Geiger continued his medical practice for 27 more years as a cardiotho­racic surgeon in San Francisco at St. Mary’s Medical Center and at Marin General Hospital.

Alexander Daniel Kovacs, M.D. ’52, Philadelphia, a retired physi­cian; August 30, 2015. He served in both the U.S. Navy and Army. He had lived in New Jersey, where he practiced as an obste­trician-gynecologist. In the early 1980s, he was president of the New Jersey AMA.

Buel S. Smith, M.D. ’52, Akron, Ohio., a retired surgeon; January 15, 2015. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, European Command, at the U.S. Army Hospital in Versailles, France.

He practiced orthopaedic sur­gery in Akron for more than 35 years. He had been chairman and director of the residency training program in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Akron General Medical Center. In addi­tion, he served as president of the hospital’s staff and at Barber­ton Citizens Hospital, and he had been a professor and chairman of orthopaedic surgery at Northeast Ohio University College of Medi­cine. The Buel S. Smith Ortho­paedic Surgery In-Patient Center at Akron General Medical Cen­ter was dedicated in 2010. He was elected to the Society of Dis­tinguished Physicians at Akron General Medical Center and re­ceived the President’s Award.

A. Peter Batson, M.D. ’53, G.M.E. ’60, Norwich, Vt., a re­tired ophthalmologist who had maintained a practice there for 22 years; May 15, 2014. After his internship at Philadelphia Gen­eral Hospital, Batson joined the U.S. Air Force as a first lieu­tenant. He served for 23 years, as flight surgeon, ophthalmologist, chief of hospital services, and hospital commander, and was promoted to colonel in 1970. He received the Meritorious Service Medal, among many awards.

When he retired from the Air Force in August 1976, Batson moved to Vermont and opened an ophthalmology office in Lebanon.

Frank Christian Greiss Jr., M.D. ’53, Lake Norman, N.C., a retired physician; July 23, 2015. He served as a U.S. Navy lieu­tenant at the dependents’ hospi­tal of the Charleston Navy Yard. In 1960, he joined the Depart­ment of Obstetrics and Gyne­cology at Bowman Gray, where he served as chairman. He re­ceived the Foundation Prize of the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as well as the Distinguished Service Award from the North Carolina Obstetrical and Gyne­cological Society.

Paul G. McKelvey Jr., M.D. ’53, Greensburg, Pa., a retired family physician; October 25, 2014. He served in the military during World War II as a member of the 159th Engineer Combat Battal­ion, which played a prominent role in the Battle of the Bulge. For his service, he was awarded the American Campaign Medal and the European-African-Mid­dle Eastern Campaign Medal, with five Bronze Stars and the World War II Victory Medal. In Greensburg, he maintained a pri­vate practice for 25 years. He then joined the staff of Latrobe Area Hospital as a teaching fac­ulty member in the Family Medi­cine Residency Program, in which he trained recent medical school graduates in the nuances of running a successful family practice. He also served as plant physician for the former ITE Corp., makers of circuit breakers, for 25 years.

C. Burns Roehrig, M.D., G.M. ’53, a retired internist and endo­crinologist, Hilton Head Island, S.C.; January 17, 2015. He re­ceived his medical degree from the University of Maryland and completed his residency in inter­nal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. During the Korean War, he served as a flight sur­geon and captain in the U.S. Air Force. Roehrig had been chief of the general medical staff and president of the medical admin­istrative board at New England Deaconess Hospital. He was also a member of the physician advi­sory group for the Health Care Financing Administration (now known as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services). He was former president of the New En­gland Diabetes Association, had served on the board of directors of the Greater Boston YMCA, and had been president of the Massachusetts Society for Inter­nal Medicine. A former president of the American Society of Inter­nal Medicine, Roehrig also served for 12 years as editor of the organization’s monthly maga­zine, The Internist. He was elected a Master of the American College of Physicians.

Donald Vail Rhoads, M.D. ’54, a retired physician who had main­tained a family practice in Chest­nut Hill for many years; January 27, 2015. He completed a three-year fellowship in internal medi­cine at the Mayo Clinic in Roch­ester, Minn. A conscientious ob­jector during the Korean War, Rhoads served his alternative service at Rochester State Hospi­tal. He was also an assistant clini­cal professor of medicine at Penn, where he taught senior medical students in the outpa­tient clinic. He had been a mem­ber of the staff of Northwestern Institute of Psychiatry and worked as a medical adviser to the American Friends Service Committee. He served for 31 years on the board of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biol­ogy, which had been founded by his great-uncle Isaac J. Wistar in 1892. Rhoads had also been a vice president of the board of di­rectors of Friends Hospital. One of his daughters is Caroline S. Rhoads, M.D. ’89.

Jay A. Desjardins, M.D. ’55, West Chester, Pa., a retired in­ternist; November 23, 2014. From 1956 to 1962, he served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. He practiced internal medicine for 35 years in Havertown, Pa., and was an attending physician at Fitzgerald Mercy, Riddle Memo­rial, and Delaware County Me­morial hospitals. He was hon­ored in 2012 by Mercy Catholic Medical Center for 50 years of devoted service.

William S. Vaun, M.D. ’55, Nor­folk, Conn., a retired physician; December 1, 2014. From 1957 to 1959, he served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, with concur­rent assignments at the Pentagon and at Andrews and Bolling Air Force bases in Washington, D.C. In 1965, he became director of medical education at Monmouth Medical Center. He oversaw a residency program that grew from 30 residents to more than 100 physicians-in-training and from four accredited residency programs to 10 upon his retire­ment. He was a fellow of the American College of Physicians, where he served on the commit­tee on hospitals, and of the Asso­ciation of Hospital Directors of Medical Education, where he had been vice president and chair­man of the program committee. Vaun also served on the legisla­tive council of the American Hospital Association. In 1987 he became a consultant at the Con­tinuing Medical Education com­plex at the University of Medi­cine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Matthew A. Asbornsen, M.D. ’57, Stuyvesant, N.Y., a retired physician; August 21, 2011. After graduating from Rutgers Univer­sity, he worked for Brown Broth­ers Harriman, the banking firm, until drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He served his two years in a research laboratory at the Army Chemical Center. After earning his medical degree, he completed his training at the University Hospitals of Cleveland. He then joined the Rip Van Winkle Clinic in Colum­bia County, N.Y., before estab­lishing his own practice in Kin­derhook, where he practiced for 26 years. He was a former super­visor and councilman of Stuyve­sant and worked to initiate recy­cling throughout the county. As­bornsen was also instrumental in the preservation of five miles of Stuyvesant’s shoreland.

William L. Clovis, M.D. ’57, Philadelphia, a retired psychia­trist; July 31, 2014.

Wayne C. A. Hurtubise Jr., M.D. ’57, Haverford, Pa., a retired physician; November 10, 2014. He practiced medicine for 37 years, treating patients at the for­mer Haverford State Hospital and Bryn Mawr Hospital. He was doctor and team physician at the Episcopal Academy and Agnes Irwin School.

Thomas Mair Wilson Jr., M.D. ’57, Minneapolis, a retired neu­rologist; September 5, 2015. He served two years in the U.S. Air Force as a medical doctor and was stationed in the Philippines. He then moved to Minneapolis to join Midwestern Neurologic and Psychiatric Consultants and Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

Frederick F. Paustian, M.D., G.M.E. ’58, Omaha, emeritus professor of gastroenterology at the University of Nebraska; No­vember 2, 2014. He served as president of the Metropolitan Omaha Medical Society and of the Nebraska Medical Associa­tion. He had also been governor of Nebraska for the American College of Physicians, which in 1993 designated him a master. In 2006, he was named one of the first five “Legends of Medicine” at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

James Schaller, M.D. ’58, West Chester, Pa., a retired obstetri­cian-gynecologist; August 8, 2015. He served for five years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and was a general medical officer for the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe at Versailles, France. He joined the Navy Reserve and was honorably discharged with the rank of cap­tain in 1959, then joined the staff at Nazareth Hospital in North­east Philadelphia. In 1982, he re­signed as chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Nazareth to help train doctors at Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Darby Borough and at the Medi­cal College of Pennsylvania in East Falls. 

1960s

William P. Calvert, M.D. ’60, Miami, a retired radiologist; Jan­uary 26, 2014. He served as a flight surgeon at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines for two years during the Vietnam War. He practiced radiology for more than 25 years in Miami. During that time, he was chief of radiol­ogy at Larkin Hospital and the Community Health Center; spent time on the faculty of the University of Miami School of Medicine; and served as locum tenens radiologist at Mariners, Fishermen’s, and Keys Commu­nity hospitals in the Florida Keys. Calvert was also active in the Dade County Medical Asso­ciation and the South Miami Medical Forum.

Aaron M. Rosenthal, M.D., G.M. ’61, St. Louis, a retired phy­sician; November 29, 2013.

Karl D. Nolph, M.D. ’63, G.M.E. ’67, Columbia, Mo., the Board of Curators’ Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri; June 16, 2014. He had been chief medical resident at Bryn Mawr Hospital. A pioneer in the field of dialysis, he had been chief of nephrology at the school. The Chair of Nephrology at Missouri is named in his honor. Earlier, he served as a ma­jor in the U.S. Medical Corps for two years, as a research internist and renal consultant at Walter Reed General Hospital.

John N. Thurman, M.D. ’67, former clinical associate profes­sor of medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine; November 6, 2014. He completed his post-graduate work at Geisinger Medical Center and served on Penn’s clinical faculty intermit­tently from 1981 until 2010. He was an internist at Penncare In­ternal Medical Associates of Del­aware County, from which he re­tired in 2011. At Riddle Memo­rial Hospital, he was on its active staff 1973-2011 and had served as chair of its subdivision of en­docrinology.

1970s

John L. Currie, M.D., G.M.E. ’72, Asheville, N.C., former chair of the Department of Obstet­rics-Gynecology at Dart­mouth-Hitchcock Medical Cen­ter; April 22, 2015. He earned his M.D. degree in 1967 at the Uni­versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After his training at Penn, he served in the U.S. Air Force for two years, then re­turned to join Chapel Hill OB-GYN. He later joined the medical faculty at the UNC-CH. Currie also served as chief of the divi­sion of gynecological oncology at Johns Hopkins before moving to Dartmouth-Hitchcock. He con­cluded his medical career by establishing a gyn-oncology practice at the John B. Amos Cancer Center in Columbus, Ga. In 2001, Curie graduated from Vermont Law School and en­tered the New Hampshire Bar.

1980s

Richard A. Browning, M.D., G.M.E. ’85, Barrington, R.I., for­mer chief of anesthesia at Rhode Island Hospital and the Miriam Hospital; November 13, 2012. He also had been a clinical pro­fessor of anesthesia at Brown University.

Anna S. Lev-Toaff, M.D., G.M.E. ’86, professor of radiology at Penn; April 3, 2015. She earned her medical degree in 1979 from New York University. Early in her career, she was an instructor in radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine.. She was also on the faculty at Thomas Jefferson University for 18 years and at Temple Univer­sity for four years. Lev-Toaff re­turned to Penn in 2008 as a pro­fessor of radiology and a member of the Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania. She taught and practiced at Penn un­til 2014. 

Joseph L. Mallon Jr., M.D. ’89, Philadelphia; September 9, 2015. He worked for 12 years as a gen­eral internist at Abington Memo­rial Hospital and for two years as a hospitalist physician at McLeod Hospital in Florence, S.C. He moved to the Lehigh Valley in 2007, working as a hospitalist physician at Lehigh Valley Hospi­tal in Allentown.

FACULTY

Stella Y. Botelho, M.D., emeri­tus professor of physiology, Blue Bell, Pa.; March 11, 2015. After earning a medical degree from the Woman’s Medical College, she became an instructor at Penn’s School of Medicine in 1949. She was promoted to pro­fessor in 1969 and retired in 1981. She taught courses in ap­plied and medical physiology. In her research lab, she studied re­spiratory physiology, neuromus­cular physiology, the spinal cord, and secretions of exocrine glands. She was the principal in­vestigator on many scientific grants, and her research was funded by the Muscular Dystro­phy Association and the Na­tional Council to Combat Blind­ness. Botelho also sat on scien­tific review panels for the Na­tional Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and the National Institutes of Health. In 1968, she received the Alum­nae Award of Merit from Penn, where she had earned her un­dergraduate degree in chemistry in 1940. 

Howard Holtzer, Ph.D., Phila­delphia, emeritus professor of cell and developmental biology; November 5, 2014. After serving in the Army in the Pacific during World War II, he graduated from the University of Chicago, where he also earned his doctorate in 1952. In 1953, he joined what was then called Penn’s Depart­ment of Anatomy, continuing his research that provided the foun­dation of much of the molecular work on inductive signals be­tween tissues and how cells com­municate during development. At Penn, he applied a new tech­nique, fluorescent labeling of an­tibodies, to the study of myogen­esis. According to Jonathan Ep­stein, M.D., executive vice dean and chief scientific officer of the Perelman School, “From this new ability to examine much earlier stages of development came such creative ideas as cell lineages giv­ing rise to more and more re­stricted options until a terminally differentiated cell is produced (progressive lineage restriction).” Among his other discoveries: the existence of a new class of fila­ments, the intermediate fila­ments (including keratins, lamins, and neurofilaments). Holtzer was also known as a great colleague who trained many scientists.

Holtzer’s research took him across the globe, to appoint­ments at universities and insti­tutes in Tokyo, Beijing, London, Rome, Heidelberg, and Berlin. He won a Fulbright Scholarship and was a Guggenheim Fellow at Carlsberg Laboratories in Co­penhagen. Holtzer remained ac­tive in his research at Penn until a few years before his death. He is survived by his wife and re­search collaborator of 64 years, Sybil Holtzer.

Ralph A. Jessar, M.D. See Class of 1946.

Anna S. Lev-Toaff, M.D. See Class of 1986.

Donald Vail Rhoads, M.D. See Class of 1954.

John L. Sbarbaro Jr., M.D., St. Augustine, Fla., a retired assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at Penn who had also been chief of orthopaedic surgery at the old Medical College of Pennsylvania; September 2, 2014. He was a vet­eran of the U.S. Navy. He devel­oped and patented the Sbarbaro Total Hip Prosthesis.

Heinz Schleyer, M.D., Haver­town, Pa., emeritus assistant pro­fessor of surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine; November 10, 2014. He joined Penn as a postdoctoral fellow in medical physics in 1961 and was ap­pointed an assistant professor of biophysics in 1970; emeritus sta­tus was conferred in 2004. He was known for his work on Cyto­chrome P-450, enzymes involved in drug metabolism. 

John N. Thurman, M.D.. See Class of 1967.

Camillus L. Witzleben, M.D., Swarthmore, Pa., an emeritus professor of pathology and labo­ratory medicine; October 1, 2014. He joined the faculty in 1964 and was appointed emeri­tus in 1996. During his time at Penn, he also held a secondary appointment in pediatrics and was pathologist-in-chief at Chil­dren’s Hospital of Philadelphia for 25 years. An expert on pedi­atric liver disease, Witzleben was a former president of the Pediat­ric Pathology Society.