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In Memoriam
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In Memoriam
James E. Fitzgerald
Gabriel L. Plaa
Robert A. Wiley
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James E. Fitzgerald
James E. Fitzgerald passed away on March 27, 2009. He received his DVM (1955), MS (1962), and Ph.D. (1964) from the University of Illinois. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force. In 1965 he became a Diplomat of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists. Dr. Fitzgerald had a distinguished career in the Department of Toxicology at Parke-Davis and Company and Warner-Lambert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he held several positions during his tenure and served as Director of Comparative Pathology until his retirement.
Dr. Fitzgerald was pre-deceased by his wife, Yvonne, and is survived by his son, John Fitzgerald, and daughters Anne and Carol Fitzgerald.
Gabriel L. Plaa
Submitted by Curtis Klaassen
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Gabriel L. Plaa |
Gabriel Leon Plaa, a prominent educator and toxicologist, died of cancer in Montreal, Canada. He was 79 years of age.
Gabriel L. Plaa was born May 15, 1930, in San Francisco to immigrants from France and thus French was his first language. He graduated from the University of California in 1952 with a B.Sc. in criminalistics. As a veteran of the Korean War, Dr. Plaa returned to the University of California for graduate studies in criminalistics. While attending a course taught by Charlie Hine, he was given the choice of remaining a graduate student in criminalistics without a stipend, or becoming a graduate student in pharmacology and toxicology with a stipend. Dr. Plaa became a toxicologist, earning his M.Sc. in 1956, and his Ph.D. in 1958 in Comparative Pharmacology and Toxicology with Dr. Hine as his mentor.
Dr. Plaa was an Instructor and Assistant Professor at Tulane University from 1958–1962, and then was assistant and associate professor at the University of Iowa from 1962–1968. In 1968, Dr. Plaa moved to the University of Montreal where he was Chairman of Pharmacology for 12 years. Over the years, he held other administrative positions at the university including Vice-Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, all the while conducting an active research program. The University of Montreal acknowledged his achievements and named him Professor Emeritus in 1996. In 2003, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of its founding, the University of Montreal recognized Dr. Plaa as one of the pioneers of the institution.
Dr. Plaa was extraordinarily charitable with his time for the advancement of science nationally and internationally. He served on various scientific committees for the Society of Toxicology (SOT), NIH, ASPET, Society of Toxicology of Canada (STC), MRC, NAS, FASEB, WHO, IUPHAR, and IUTOX. He was on the editorial board of nine scientific journals, served as Associate Editor of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, and was Editor of TAAP from 1972–1980. Dr. Plaa was President of the STC (1981–1983) and SOT (1983–1984).
Dr. Plaa’s research focused on chemical-induced liver injury. With his Ph.D. dissertation, he was the first scientist to study hepatotoxicity using an isolated perfused liver. He made significant contributions in the 1) dose-response characteristics of hepatotoxicity, 2) catecholamines and carbon tetrachloride hepatotoxicity, 3) dye clearance technique for assessing hepatic function, 4) potentiation of haloalkane hepatotoxicity, 5) ANIT-induced cholestasis, 6) the manganese-bilirubin model of cholestasis, and 7) potentiation of chemically-induced cholestasis. Dr. Plaa published 233 peer-reviewed manuscripts, wrote 48 chapters and literature reviews, and edited five books. He received the first Achievement Award from the SOT (USA) in 1967, an award which recognizes promising young scientists. That recognition was affirmed when in 1996 he received the Society’s highest award, the Merit Award which recognizes career length contributions to the science and profession of toxicology. In the intervening years he received the Arnold Lehman Award (1981) for his use of sound scientific principles in risk assessment and regulation of chemicals, and the Education Award (1987) for his teaching and training of toxicologists. Similarly in Canada, he received from the STC the VE Henderson Award (1969), the STC Award of Distinction (1984), and was named honorary president of ICT-XI in Montreal (2007).
Dr. Plaa had high expectations, first for himself and then for those he related to; he relayed these expectations with a witty sense of humor that was inspiring and stimulating. Dr. Plaa summarized his scientific career in an article entitled “A four-decade adventure in experimental liver injury” published in Drug Metabolism Reviews 29: 1–37, 1997 in which he concluded “the most satisfying ‘results’ of my research program are not the data or new observations acquired, but the graduate students and fellows with whom I collaborated over a span of nearly 40 years. I am forever grateful for their precious presence and participation in my laboratory.” Gabbie’s influence in training toxicologists was extraordinary. Two of his Ph.D. students later received Achievement Awards from the SOT (Klaassen and Charbonneau), and five graduate students in the pharmacology-toxicology program during Gabbie’s six years at the University of Iowa were later elected Presidents of SOT (Dixon, Gibson, Hook, Klaassen, and McClain).
Dr. Plaa retired from the University of Montreal in 1996. During the last 13 years of his life, he cared for his wife, Colleen, who has multiple sclerosis, much as she cared for Gabbie during his decades in science. Gabbie was also the loving father of eight children, Ernest, Steven, Kenneth, Gregory, Andrew, John, Denise, and David, as well as a grandfather of eight.
Gabbie Plaa had an enormous influence on his children, his “academic children,” as well as the entire toxicology community. We all will miss him, but his contributions to society will survive us all.
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