Judah Folkman

Moses Judah Folkman (February 24, 1933 – January 14, 2008)^[1] was an American biologist and pediatric surgeon best known for his research on tumor angiogenesis, the process by which a tumor attracts blood vessels to nourish itself and sustain its existence. He founded the field of angiogenesis research, which has led to the discovery of a number of therapies based on inhibiting or stimulating neovascularization.^[2]

Early life

Born in 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio, Judah Folkman accompanied his father, a rabbi, on visits to hospital patients. By age seven, he knew he wanted to be a doctor rather than follow in his father's footsteps, so he could offer cures in addition to comfort. His father replied, "In that case, you can be a rabbi-like doctor," words his son took to heart.^[3]

Folkman graduated from Ohio State University in 1953, and then Harvard Medical School in 1957.^[4] While a student at Harvard Medical School, he trained under Robert Edward Gross^[5] and also worked on a prototype pacemaker, work that he never published.^[6]

In 1960, his residency was interrupted when he was drafted in the

The navy research was focused on developing artificial blood; in the course of testing potential products to see if they could keep alive thymus glands taken from rabbits, he noticed that tumors in the gland could not grow as they did if the glands were perfused with blood. His curiosity as to why led to his work on angiogenesis.[3]

After his two years work for the navy, Folkman completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. He worked as an assistant surgeon at Boston City Hospital, then trained further in pediatric surgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia under C. Everett Koop.^[5]

Career

In 1967 he was appointed surgeon-in-chief of

In the mid to late 1980s, two other angiogenic factors were identified by other labs that had been inspired by his work:

VEGF.^[5] With the factors identified, drug discovery could begin. When the Monsanto agreement (which yielded no products for Monsanto) ended, Folkman started receiving research funding from Takeda and then from a startup company, Entremed, that put half its venture capital funding into research in the Folkman lab.^[5]

surrogate endpoints.^[5][11]

In 1991 Michael O"Reilly, working in the Folkman lab with Entremed funding, discovered the first endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor,

Bristol-Myers, which caught national interest and spurred further investment in angiogenesis inhibitors by other pharma companies.^[5][12]

In 1993 he surprised the scientific world by hypothesizing that angiogenesis is as important in

angiogenesis inhibitors, and discovered that thalidomide inhibited angiogenesis in 1994.^[14][15] Around that time, the wife of a man who was dying of multiple myeloma and whom standard treatments had failed, called Folkman asking him about his anti-angiogenesis ideas.^[10] Folkman convinced the patient's doctor to try thalidomide, and that doctor ended up conducting a clinical trial of thalidomide for people with multiple myeloma in which about a third of the subjects responded to the treatment.^[10] The results of that trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999.^[10][16]

In 2004, the first angiogenesis inhibitor,

Lucentis, was later approved for treating macular degeneration.^[3] After further work was done by Celgene and others, in 2006 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval for thalidomide in combination with dexamethasone for the treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients.^[10][19]

Awards

Folkman was a member of the

Prince of Asturias Award, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement^[21] and Switzerland's Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award.^[22] In 2005 he was awarded the Scientific Grand Prize of the Lefoulon-Delalande Foundation.^[23]

He was awarded the

Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California

in 1997. On May 29, 1998, Folkman received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine at Uppsala University, Sweden^[24]

Personal life

Folkman died of a heart attack in Denver on January 14, 2008, at the age of 74 en route to deliver the 2008 Keynote Address at the Keystone Symposium (Molecular Mechanisms of Angiogenesis in Development and Disease) in

Vancouver, British Columbia.^[25]

He was survived by his wife, Paula, whom he met and married while doing his surgical residency,[5] two daughters, and a granddaughter.^[25]

Further reading

• Cooke, Robert; Koop, C Everett (2001). Dr. Folkman's War: Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer. New York: Random House.
  ISBN 978-0-375-50244-6
  .
• Judah Folkman (2001). Cancer Warrior (.MP3) (Video). PBS NOVA. Retrieved August 25, 2007.
• "Folkman's Foresight". CR magazine. Fall 2008. Archived from the original on October 23, 2008. Retrieved October 16, 2008.
• Judah Folkman biography and inspiration for the Tobin Project
• Lam, Andrew. Saving Sight: An eye surgeon's look at life behind the mask and the heroes who changed the way we see. Bokeelia, FL; Irie Books, 2013
  ISBN 978-1617203794

References

1. ^ "Judah Folkman, MD". Department of Ophthalmology. Harvard Medical School. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
2. ^
   PMID 18772371
   .
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Children's Hospital Boston Remembering Judah Folkman: Biography
4. ^ ^{a b c} Harvard Medical School Bio at Harvard Medical School
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Patricia K Donahoe. Judah Folkman: 1933–2008. A Biographical Memoir National Academy of Sciences, 2014
6. ^ Academy of Achievement. June 17, 2010 Judah Folkman Biography, Foundations for Cancer Therapy Archived January 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
7. ISBN 9781629560304
8. PMID 14130164
   .
9. PMID 4938153
   .
10. ^
    PMID 19093793
    .
11. PMID 7508518
    .
12. ^ John Crewdson for the Chicago Tribune. April 11, 1999 Crucial Test For Cancer Drug
13. ^
    PMID 11740806
    .
14. PMID 7513432
    .
15. PMID 18247146
    .
16. S2CID 45150547
    .
17. ^ Andrew Pollack for the New York Times. February 27, 2004 F.D.A. Approves Cancer Drug From Genentech
18. PMID 18568940
    .
19. ^ "FDA Approval for Thalidomide". National Cancer Institute. Archived from the original on January 28, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
20. ^ "Society for Endocrinology Medal Winners" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 16, 2013.
21. American Academy of Achievement
    .
22. ^ "The Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Foundation". Archived from the original on November 29, 2011.
23. ^ "Historique". Fondation Lefoulon-Delalande Institut de France. April 12, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
24. ^ Naylor, David (June 9, 2023). "Honorary doctorates – Uppsala University, Sweden". www.uu.se.
25. ^ ^{a b} Pollack, Andrew (January 16, 2008). "Judah Folkman, Researcher, Died at 74 on January 15, 2008". The New York Times. Retrieved April 11, 2010.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Judah Folkman.

• M. Judah Folkman papers, 1907–2012 (inclusive), 1950–2006 (bulk). H MS c365. Harvard Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass.