 | Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professorship established
100th new endowed professorship in $1.3 billion Campaign for Washington University will be held by Jeffrey I. Gordon
St. Louis, January 18, 2002 — Washington University in St. Louis has established the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professorship, its 100th new endowed chair since the 1998 inception of the University’s current $1.3 billion capital campaign.
Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced the new professorship, which was made possible through a major gift commitment from Dr. Glaser and his children. Dr. Glaser, a nationally recognized leader in biomedical education and philanthropy, is an emeritus trustee and former faculty member of
Washington University in St. Louis.
The Glaser Professorship will be occupied by Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D., head of the Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology at the School of Medicine. Gordon also directs the Washington University Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, which oversees all Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. students in the biological sciences at both the Hilltop and Medical campuses. Distinguished University Professorships, a special distinction, are by tradition awarded to persons whose interests and activities enrich the academic community on a university-wide basis.
“Over the years Dr. Glaser has been generous to Washington University with his time, his ideas and his resources,” said Wrighton. “With this endowed professorship, his impact on the University, truly his legacy, assumes a new and enduring form. We are grateful for his signal contributions to the future of biomedical research and education here, and are especially pleased that our 100th endowed chair, an important milestone in the Campaign for Washington University, will bear his name.”
“It is particularly gratifying that Chancellor Wrighton has selected an esteemed member of the medical school faculty to be the first Robert J. Glaser Professor,” said William A. Peck, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. “Jeff Gordon, much like Dr. Glaser, has wide-ranging academic interests and accomplishments, coupled with great leadership abilities. He has distinguished himself as a member of the Washington University community as well as the greater national community of biomedical and educational scholars.”
A nationally known leader in medical education, Glaser in 1972 became the first full-time president and chief executive officer of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. He had an important role in revitalizing general internal medicine by establishing the Kaiser Scholars and Fellowships programs. In 1984, Glaser joined the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, which provided major grants for support of basic biomedical research. He spent 13 years with the Markey Trust, initially defining the Trust’s program and serving as its director for medical science and a member of its board of trustees. In accordance with the wishes of its donor, the Trust ceased operations in 1997, having made grants totaling over $500 million. The Markey Trust long-term grants in basic medical science had a role in advancing important initiatives in structural, developmental, and molecular biology at leading universities and research institutions. The Markey Scholars program has been well recognized for having sped the development of outstanding young biomedical investigators.
Glaser, who remains active as a biomedical consultant and as a scientific advisor, was elected to Washington University's Board of Trustees in 1979. Glaser continues to be interested and engaged in the work of the board's educational policy committee, which he chaired for more than a decade. He served as inaugural chair of the School of Medicine's National Council, a 27-member committee that helps chart the School of Medicine's direction.
A native of St. Louis, Glaser earned a bachelor's degree in 1940 and a medical degree magna cum laude in 1943 from Harvard University. He was an intern in medicine at what is now Barnes-Jewish Hospital and spent a year as an assistant resident at Harvard's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital before returning to the Washington University School of Medicine as senior assistant resident and then chief resident of medicine.
After serving two years as a National Research Council Fellow in the Medical Sciences, in 1949 Glaser was appointed to the Washington University School of Medicine faculty as an instructor of medicine. Over the next few years, he held the titles of associate professor of medicine, chief of the Division of Immunology and of the Rheumatic Fever Clinic, and associate dean and chairman of the Committee on Admissions.
The University of Colorado Medical School recruited Glaser to become its dean in 1957, making him, at 38, the youngest medical dean in the United States. He also served as vice president for medical affairs. During his tenure in Colorado, he was named editor of The Pharos, the quarterly journal of Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, a post he held for 35 years. From 1963 to 1965, he was president of the Affiliated Hospital Center, a consortium of Harvard teaching hospitals, concomitantly holding an appointment as professor of social medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
In 1965, Glaser became vice president for medical affairs, dean and professor of medicine at Stanford, where he consolidated a divided hospital and played an important role in establishing the Stanford University Medical Center. In 1968, he served briefly as Stanford's acting president.
Leaving full-time academia in 1970, Glaser moved to New York to serve as vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, where he had an important part in the Fund’s support of the Hospice movement in this country. Two years later, he returned to California to head the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a post he held until 1983.
Glaser was a charter member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and he served as the first chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a master of the
American College of Physicians and a member of the Association of American Physicians and the Royal College of Physicians of London. A prolific scholar, he has published more than 125 articles on topics ranging from medical education, health care and medical practice, to rheumatic fever and streptococcal infections.
Among his numerous honors and awards are ten honorary degrees, including one from Washington University, the Abraham Flexner Award for Distinguished Service to Medical Education from the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Research Center Award and the John Kearns Award from the New York Academy of Medicine for lifetime achievement in the field.
In 1986, the Robert J. Glaser Award was established by the Society for Research and Education in Primary Care Internal Medicine in recognition of Glaser's leadership in having revitalized general internal medicine.
Glaser shared his commitment to medicine with his late wife, Helen Hofsommer Glaser, M.D., who died in 1999. She earned a medical degree from Washington University’s School of Medicine, and trained in pediatrics at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Her parents and her brother were also alumni of the School, and her mother, Aphrodite Jannopoulo Hofsommer, was one of the first women admitted to the School of Medicine.
Dr. Robert Glaser is a life member of Washington University’s William Greenleaf Eliot Society and recipient of its highest honor — the Search Award. Among their numerous contributions to Washington University, he and his late wife underwrote the gallery at the entrance of the History of Medicine Library in the Bernard Becker Medical Library, and they endowed a visiting professorship in the Department of Medicine. The Helen H. Glaser Scholarship for Women Medical Students was established in her memory by Dr. Glaser in 1999.
About Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon
Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D., first holder of the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professorship, received his A.B. in biology from Oberlin College and his M.D. from the University of Chicago. He joined the Washington University faculty in l981 after completing his clinical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology and serving as a research associate in the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the National Cancer Institute.
Gordon has remained at Washington University his entire academic career. From 1981 to 1991 his primary appointment was in the Department of Medicine, where in 1987 he attained the rank of professor. He also had an appointment as professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. In 1991 he became Alumni Professor and head of the Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology. Since 1994, he has also served as the director of the Washington University Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences.
Gordon is known for his research on gastrointestinal development and how intestinal
bacteria affect intestinal function. In addition, Gordon’s lab has studied an enzyme, N-myristolytransferase, that affects the functions of many cellular proteins and has provided important clues about the process of aging.
Gordon has published more than 300 papers and is listed as inventor or co-inventor on 22 patents. He has received many honors and awards. Recently elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, he also is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and co-chair of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund advisory committee that oversees its program for developing synergies between the physical and biomedical sciences.
Gordon has mentored more than 30 Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. students and an equal number of postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory over the past 20 years. Last year he received the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award from graduate students in the School of Arts and Sciences.
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