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With an eye for detail, an expert on the lung shares his life’s work By John Curtis In a basement office in Brady Memorial Laboratory, the evidence of a half-century of lung cancer research clutters the shelves, pours from filing cabinets and covers the desk and nearly every flat surface. The remaining spaces are filled with a few unremarkable pieces of office furniture, several microscopes and drawers of slides, and a sign that thanks visitors for not smoking. Although semi-retired at age 85, Raymond Yesner, M.D., continues to teach the craft and science of pathology while documenting the knowledge he has amassed during 53 years on the Yale medical faculty. In November 1997, Lippincott-Raven published his Atlas of Lung Cancer, a compendium of knowledge and insights gleaned from a life spent studying diseases of the lung, particularly cancer and tuberculosis. Yesner, professor emeritus and senior research scientist in pathology, is “the premier authority on the pathology of lung cancer,” according to the book description; its pages contain some 450 photographs and conclusions based on his work with more than 25,000 cases. Yesner’s keen understanding of the lung and its vulnerabilities has won him praise in medical circles as well as the emnity of the tobacco industry that he has testified against in legal proceedings. Outside the courtroom, he recalled in an interview, industry agents followed his movements in a fruitless search for a way to discredit him. “If I had any skeletons in the closet,” he said, “they were interested in uncovering them.” Last November, he was honored with a Yale professorship in his name. In announcing the news—and the appointment of pathology chair Jon S. Morrow, M.D., as the first incumbent—Dean David A. Kessler, M.D., praised Yesner for his accomplishments as a scientist and his skill with students. “Dr. Yesner,” the dean said, “is particularly known for providing the kind of support and encouragement that comes with great teachers.” Morrow also offered kind words for Yesner. “He has been a mainstay of the pathology program. He has taught legions of residents. He remains intellectually active,” Morrow said in a recent interview. “I marvel at the remarkable contributions he has made over the years.” Born in 1914, Yesner spent his youth mostly in New England. The family’s travels took them from Georgia, where he was born, to Maine, where his father ran a general store catering to lumberjacks who arrived on skis, to New York City, where he excelled as a pupil and skipped two grades. When the family settled in Massachusetts, Yesner attended Boston Latin School and proceeded on to Harvard on a scholarship, then to Tufts Medical School. Through it all, he developed an interest in writing that persists. He has published hundreds of articles in medical journals, ranging from landmark studies of lung disease to an account of his visit to hospitals and clinics in Kenya. Resisting the computer age, he still writes by hand, although he is working on the CD-ROM edition of his lung cancer atlas. “I like to see things in long hand and let them marinate for a little bit,” he said, “in case I want to change them.” Yesner came to Yale as an assistant professor in 1946, shortly after he mustered out of the Army and began a career at the Veterans Administration in West Haven. In 1974, he retired from government service and devoted himself to teaching at Yale, an activity he still enjoys. “This past weekend I supervised two autopsies and have just gone over them with a resident,” he said during the interview several months ago. “This kind of teaching, which is done one-to-one over a microscope, is the best kind of teaching.” It is during these sessions that Yesner feels he can not only discuss what is being observed in the laboratory, but also shape the views of his students and the future practice of his discipline. He rallies energetically in favor of the autopsy, all too rarely performed in this day and age, he believes. “In order to understand disease you have to be able to follow cases from biopsy to autopsy,” he said, using a writer’s analogy to make his point. “The autopsy is the last chapter of an individual’s life. This is a very important thing.”
Donaghue Foundation selects five investigators for long-term support Five researchers have been awarded $100,000-a-year, five-year grants from the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation. The foundation’s first awards through the Donaghue Investigator Program for Health-Related Research were announced in November. The researchers are: Mark B. Gerstein, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine, who will conduct a large-scale analysis of gene sequences and protein structures that will be relevant to understanding the molecular basis of diseases that have been genetically characterized. Sharon K. Inouye, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine, who will study ways to reduce delirium and functional decline in hospitalized older persons with the goal of reducing the length of hospital stays and improving health outcomes. Zeev Kain, M.D., associate professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics, who will identify children who are prone to preoperative anxiety and seek ways to decrease their stress and improve long-term outcomes. David Rimm, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology, who will study adhesion protein expression as a predictor of cancer metastasis. Discovery of new biological markers in breast or melanoma tumors can greatly enhance early treatment of cancer patients. Stephen Strittmatter, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology, will investigate axonal regeneration after spinal cord injury. Results could have major positive implications for victims of spinal cord injury and stroke. George K. Aghajanian, M.D., professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, received the 1998 Lieber Prize for Schizophrenia in October from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression at a gala dinner in New York. Vincent A.T. Andriole, M.D., HS professor of medicine, received the 1998 Bristol Award in November at the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s annual meeting in Denver. The award is granted in recognition of a career reflecting major accomplishments and contributions through teaching in an area of infectious diseases. Andriole also received the Lawrence Paul Garrod Award from the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy at its annual meeting in November in Manchester, England, at which time he delivered the Farrod Lecture. Amy Arnsten, Ph.D., research scientist in neurobiology, Ralph E. Hoffman, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry, and Scott W. Woods, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry and diagnostic radiology, received 1998 Independent Investigator Awards from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. They each will receive $50,000 a year for two years for their research. James L. Boyer, M.D. ’78, professor of medicine, received the Distinguished Achievement Award in November from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in honor of his ongoing scientific contributions to the field of liver diseases and to the scientific foundations of hepatology. Yung-Chi Cheng, Ph.D., the Henry Bronson Professor of Pharmacology and medicine, received the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Award in Experimental Therapeutics for 1999. The award, funded by Hoffman-LaRoche Inc. is given annually for the purpose of recognizing and stimulating outstanding basic laboratory or clinical research that has had, or potentially will have, a major impact on the pharmacological treatment of disease. Past recipients from Yale are Alan C. Sartorelli, Ph.D. in 1986; William H. Prusoff, Ph.D. in 1982; and Joseph R. Bertino, M.D. in 1970. Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D., professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and assistant investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was one of 17 researchers honored by the National Academy of Sciences. Doudna received a $15,000 Award for Initiative in Research for her pioneering studies, which have enabled the determination of complex RNA structures, especially those of ribozymes, through X-ray crystallography. The award, established in 1981 by AT&T Bell Laboratories in honor of William O. Baker, is supported currently by Lucent Technologies. In October, Stephen C. Edberg, Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and medicine, was appointed United States delegate to the Codex Alimentarious Commission (CAC). Edberg was chosen for his internationally recognized work in the field of microbial health risk assessment. The CAC is the body of the United Nations that generates standards and regulations for the international movement of food, agriculture and drinking water. John A. Elefteriades, M.D., professor of surgery and chief of the section of cardiothoracic surgery, delivered an invited address on Surgical Revascularization for Failing Hearts during the plenary sessions of the American Heart Association’s 71st Annual Meeting in Dallas in November. Elefteriades also spoke on this topic in October at the Post-Graduate Course of the American College of Surgeons in Orlando. Gerald H. Friedland, M.D., professor of medicine and epidemiology, was honored on World AIDS Day in December with the Connecticut Department of Public Health’s 10th annual AIDS Leadership Award. Friedland was honored for his work in research, administration and policy development, as well as for providing exceptional patient care. Siegfried J. Kra, M.D., associate clinical professor of medicine, conducted a symposium on hypertension in October in Windsor, Conn., sponsored by Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. John M. Leventhal, M.D., professor of pediatrics and a member of the Child Study Center faculty, received the 1998 Research Award from the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, which represents almost 2,000 pediatric academic generalists in the United States. Leventhal received this award for his research on risk factors for child abuse and for his enthusiastic mentoring of medical students and fellows pursuing research on child abuse and developmental and behavioral pediatrics. Richard P. Lifton, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Genetics and professor of medicine, genetics, and molecular biophysics and biochemistry, delivered two lectures as part of the 1998 Holiday Lectures on Science for high school students sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The lectures—Telltale Genes: Charting Human Disease and The Kidney’s Tale: of Salt and Hypertension—were broadcast live via satellite throughout the United States and Canada and internationally via the Internet. Stephen E. Malawista, M.D., professor of medicine, was awarded an honorary doctorate (Docteur Honoris Causa) by the Université René Descartes in Paris in December. Malawista is known for his work on motile and killing functions of white blood cells in the context of the inflammatory response, the mechanism of action of colchicine, the pathogenesis of gout, and the discovery and elucidation of Lyme disease. Bruce McClennan, M.D., professor of diagnostic radiology, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Academy of Radiology Research in November. The academy’s focus is on radiology as a discipline committed to research and the translation of research advances into higher-quality and more cost-effective patient care. McClennan is secretary of the American Roentgen Ray Society. Ira S. Mellman, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and immunobiology and director of the Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, was named editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cell Biology (JCB) in March by Arnold Levine, Ph.D., president of The Rockefeller University. Mellman replaces Norton B. Gilula, Ph.D., of the Scripps Research Institute, who had served as editor-in-chief since 1981. The journal was founded in 1955 by several of the field’s pioneers, including former Yale professor and Nobel laureate George Palade, M.D. Yale faculty members currently serving on its editorial board include Pietro DeCamilli, M.D., Graham Warren, Ph.D., Keith Joiner, M.D. and Arthur Horwich, M.D. Mellman, a senior editor at JCB for the past year, says new initiatives are planned for the journal, including enhanced web access, video links and a unique system for online peer review. James R. Merikangas, M.D., HS ’71-72, lecturer in psychiatry, was elected president of the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists in October at its annual meeting in New Orleans. Sara C. Rockwell, Ph.D., professor of therapeutic radiology and pharmacology, received the John Yuhas Award in October from the University of Pennsylvania in recognition of her outstanding research in radiation biology. The award was presented to Rockwell after she delivered the John Yuhas Memorial Lecture on Radioresistance and Drug Resistance: The Importance of the Cellular Environment. Martin W. Sklaire, M.D., clinical professor of pediatrics, was presented the 1998 Milton J.E. Senn Award by the American Academy of Pediatrics in recognition of his achievement in the field of school health. Sklaire, also a school physician in the Madison, Clinton, Hamden and Saybrook school systems in Connecticut, has been in private practice in Madison for over 30 years. Brian R. Smith, M.D., professor of laboratory medicine, pediatrics and medicine (bone marrow transplantation), has been appointed assistant chief of laboratory medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Frans J.Th. Wackers, M.D., professor of diagnostic radiology and medicine and director of cardiovascular nuclear imaging, was awarded the Eugene H. Drake Award in February by the American Heart Association’s New England Affiliate. In March, he received the 1999 Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. Eiji Yanagisawa, M.D., clinical professor of surgery (otolaryngology), presented two video programs in October during the Motion Picture Session in Otorhinolaryngology at the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons in Orlando. In November, he was an invited lecturer at the 50th Anniversary Congress of the Japan Bronco-Esophagological Society held in Kobe. Yanagisawa also presented a video program with Dewey A. Christmas, M.D., HS ’70, last July at the 1998 European Rhinologic Society and International Symposium of Infection and Allergy of the Nose in Vienna, receiving a second place award in the international competition.
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