Dr. Leonard S. Gottlieb, 1927–2006

Leonard S. Gottlieb, M.D., M.P.H., Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Pathology at Boston University School of Medicine, passed away on December 7, 2006 at the age of 79. Dr. Gottlieb grew up in Lewiston, ME, where his father was the Chief of Pathology at Central Maine General Hospital. He attended Bowdoin College and graduated from the Tufts University School of Medicine in 1950. He joined the staff of the Mallory Institute of Pathology of the Boston City Hospital in 1957 after a 2-year tour of duty in the medical corps of the U.S. Naval Reserve. He was appointed as the Director of the Mallory Institute of Pathology in 1972, a position he held until 2003. Dr. Gottlieb was appointed as Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine in 1980, in succession to his mentor Dr. Stanley L. Robbins, and he stepped down in 2003. In 1974, Dr. Gottlieb’s vision combined the pathology services of the Boston City Hospital and the University Hospital, the predecessor institutions of the Boston Medical Center. For more than 30 years, he was a member of the senior leadership of this medical center. Dr. Gottlieb’s research focused on liver disease and nutrition early in his career, and with Dr. Oscar A. Iseri, he published definitive descriptions of the ultrastructure of alcohol-induced liver injury. Later, he pursued studies of colorectal cancer—the disease, ironically, to which he succumbed. In collaboration with Dr. Norman Zamcheck at the Mallory Institute of Pathology, he was active in the investigation of carcinoembryonic antigen and other tumor markers related to colorectal cancer. He was a founding member of the National Polyp Study Workgroup that initiated a clinical trial in 1980, led by Dr. Sidney J. Winawer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, to evaluate the role of colonoscopy in the prevention of colorectal cancer. Dr. Gottlieb made significant contributions to numerous landmark publications emanating from this study. Dr. Gottlieb’s contributions to medicine extended beyond the field of pathology. He took great pride in his role in establishing the Louis and Charlotte Kaitz Boston University School of Medicine-Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School student exchange program and served as the director of the program since 1988. This exchange program has to date hosted more than 130 students from both medical schools. Dr. Gottlieb was appointed to the Board of Governors of Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1994, and he was honored for his services to medicine in Israel with a lifetime achievement award from the American Friends of Hebrew University and the Louis H. Millender Community of Excellence Award by the Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Dr. Gottlieb was esteemed by generations of medical students at Boston University School of Medicine as a dedicated teacher and mentor. He will be remembered by his colleagues as a wise leader and a genial and gracious gentleman. He is survived by his devoted wife Dorothy Apt Gottlieb, his two sons, William Gottlieb and Andrew Gottlieb, his daughter Julie Gottlieb, and his adored seven grandchildren.