The Department of Pathology has its origins in two medical schools that merged to form what is now the New York University School of Medicine. The older of the two was the New York University Medical College, which was founded in 1841, only ten years after the establishment of the University itself. A significant early contribution made by this school to medicine in general and to pathology in particular was its pioneering approach to the dissection of bodies for the study of human anatomy. Through the efforts of the faculty, the “dissection of the dead” was approved by the New York State legislature in 1854 with a law known at the time as “the Bone Bill.” The younger medical school was established in 1861 as Bellevue Hospital Medical College, whose founding faculty was formed from the attending physicians at Bellevue Hospital.

In 1878 the illustrious William Welch joined the faculty of Bellevue and in 1881 was made professor of pathologic anatomy and general pathology, the first full-time appointment of its kind in the country. Together with Edward Janeway, Welch established the first pathological laboratory, made possible by a gift from Andrew Carnegie for the purpose of studying the “causation and pathology of many diseases” and for teaching the use of the microscope. With its stated research focus, the laboratory at Bellevue became the first in the United States established for teaching and investigation in pathology in 1884.

The two medical schools merged to form one institution, affiliated with Bellevue under the aegis of New York University, in 1897. After several name changes, the merged institution became the New York University School of Medicine in 1960. (In 2008 the institution was renamed NYU Langone Medical Center.) During the first half of the 20th century the Department of Pathology was staffed by distinguished anatomic pathologists who were formulating new classifications of disease. Just as Welch and his colleagues had laid the foundations of modern pathology in the 19th century, Lewis Thomas, who became chair of the Department in 1954, shaped its pace-setting role for the 20th century. His extraordinary intellect and vision broadened the focus from academic morphologic pathology to experimental pathology with a strong emphasis on immunology and inflammation.

Lewis Thomas was a gifted teacher who was able to identify and recruit many talented scientists early in their careers. In a very short time, he created one of the preeminent pathology departments in the country. Thomas founded the Honors Program at the School of Medicine, which through NIH funding supported medical students for a full year of research after their first two years. Graduates of the Honors Program who studied in the Department of Pathology include George Todaro, who developed the 3T3 cell line and later was co-formulator of the oncogene hypothesis, and Frederick Miller, who described the pentameric structure of IgM.

Thomas also established the first Pathobiology training program for Pathology residents. The program was supported by the NIH and residents were NIH fellows, trained as anatomic and clinical pathologists while simultaneously carrying on research. Many extraordinary faculty members were recruited by Thomas to pursue their distinguished careers at NYU.

Among the most famous of them was Baruj Benacerraf, who won the Nobel Prize in 1980 for his studies of immunogenetics. At NYU Benacerraf trained many notable immunologists. These include Michael Lamm, who conducted significant studies in the field of mucosal immunity and IgA antibodies; William E. Paul, who discovered IL-4, demonstrated its function as the central regulator of allergic inflammation, and who delineated the mechanisms of Th2 cell differentiation; and Robert McCluskey, who was a pioneer in the study of the mechanisms of inflammation and use of immunofluorescence as an investigative tool in delineating the nature of glomerular diseases and as an aid in the differential diagnosis of renal disorders in the late 1960s. While McCluskey was at University Hospital, the Bellevue laboratories were headed by Marvin Kuschner who also had received his medical degree from NYU and similarly trained in pathology at Bellevue. During World War II, he served as a pathologist in the War Crimes Branch of the 7th Army, taking the lead in performing autopsies of concentration camp prisoners. Kuschner was among the first researchers to study the effects of pollutants, including tobacco, on the lungs.

Following Lewis Thomas in 1958, Chandler Stetson maintained and enlarged the research orientation of the Department. Jeanette Thorbecke joined the faculty in 1957 and worked productively on tumor immunology, autoimmunity and T and B cell development. The world-renowned immunologist Zoltan Ovary, who pursued innovative research in antibodies and anaphylaxis, arrived two years later. Howard Green, who had joined NYU as an immunologist studying the actions of antibodies on mammalian cell membranes, changed the direction of his studies to cell biology and became a pioneer in the use of cell lines in culture with which he attempted to define the in vitro properties of malignant cells. Green attracted many talented collaborators and post-doctoral fellows to his lab. Among the many outstanding postdoctoral fellows in Green’s laboratory was Claudio Basilico, who had come to America from Italy to study with Renato Dulbecco and subsequently joined Green. Stetson recruited Basilico to the faculty of the Department where he became a viral oncologist of international stature. Stetson also invited the “father of immunochemistry” and two-time Lasker Award winner Michael Heidelberger to be part of the Department of Pathology in 1964.

1 2