A headline in the
New York Times unexpectedly pushed the work of Judah
Folkman, MD, into the limelight recently, making his >30 years of
research into angiogenesis seem like an overnight success. It is a
position that puts Folkman ill at ease. He is not comfortable with
hyperbole about the research he has conducted at Boston's Children's
Hospital and Harvard University Medical Center.
The New York Times front-page story drew a storm of
enthusiasm and then skepticism. Folkman appeared bemused by the flurry
of interest. He has been working quietly in the field of angiogenesis
for so long that he had not anticipated the hubbub that the story
caused. And he was not ready to have much known about his study until
it had been proven in thousands of patients. Judah Folkman is the first
to say that he can cure cancer—in mice.
Others are more generous in their praise. James Willerson, MD, editor
of Circulation, medical director at the Texas Heart
Institute, and chairman of the department of medicine at the University
of Texas Medical School at Houston, called him "the father of
angiogenesis." Folkman gave the annual Willerson Lecture at the
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr Isaiah Fidler,
chairman of the department of cell biology at the University of Texas
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, is an admiring collaborator of Folkman's.
"He is a beacon of hope. He is a national treasure. He is intuitive,
brilliant, and unafraid of the unknown. He persisted, and
This article has been cited by other articles:
© 1998 American Heart Association, Inc.
Cardiovascular News
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Stop Angiogenesis for Cancer and Encourage It for Coronary Artery Disease
E. L. Ritman and A. Lerman
The dynamic vasa vasorum
Cardiovasc Res,
September 1, 2007;
75(4):
649 - 658.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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