VOLUME 12, NUMBER 21 • MAY 4, 2001

Coller to Give Rufus Cole Lecture This Month

Barry Coller joins The Rockefeller University in September as vice president for medical affairs, physician-in-chief and head of a new Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology.

Observations made on a very rare platelet disorder, Glanzmann thrombasthenia, led to the development of a new class of antiplatelet drugs that are now given routinely to patients prior to coronary artery balloon angioplasty and stent placement. In addition, new information on cell adhesion is providing opportunities for novel approaches to treat blood vessel occlusion in patients with sickle cell disease. Barry Coller, who joins The Rockefeller University this September as vice president for medical affairs, physician-in-chief and head of a new Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology, will discuss these topics at the Rufus Cole Memorial Lecture, on Wed., May 30.

Coller developed a monoclonal antibody that inhibits platelet function, and a derivative of that antibody was developed into the commercial drug abciximab (Reo-Pro^TM ), a drug now used throughout the world. His recent studies have focused on the vascular biology of sickle cell disease, and the demonstration that a monoclonal antibody can inhibit the adhesion of sickle red blood cells to the blood vessel wall in an animal model system.

Coller received his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, and received advanced training in hematology and clinical pathology at the National Institutes of Health. Currently the Murray M. Rosenberg Professor of Medicine and chairman of the Samuel Bronfman Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as well as chief of the medical service of the Mount Sinai Hospital, Coller is noted for providing visionary leadership in the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai, for strengthening the educational programs in the medical school, for increasing the growth of research support, and for improving patient care. Prior to moving to Mt. Sinai, Coller was professor of medicine and pathology at Stony Brook.

The lecture is named in honor of Rufus Cole, the first director of the Hospital for the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Cole’s bold vision helped create a hospital, unique in its time, where physicians could both care for patients and carry out laboratory investigations toward the eradication of disease. In the 1980s, an anonymous donor funded the Rufus Cole lecture series to honor this pioneer of clinical medicine.

Coller’s talk will take place at noon in Caspary Auditorium. All are welcome.