Marian Orlowski M.D.

MARIAN ORLOWSKI, M.D., a Distinguished Professor in Pharmacology at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, died on July 16, 2009, from pneumonia at the age of 86 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with dignity and surrounded by family. After surviving the Holocaust through the help of strangers and friends, and with the grace of God, he and his family immigrated to America, where Marian was able to pursue his passion for biomedical research. In collaboration with Sherwin Wilk, he identified and characterized the activities of the proteasome. He and his colleagues also synthesized the first proteasome inhibitors, and paved the way for the development of bortezomib, the first drug targeting the proteasome which is now used in tens of thousands of patients with multiple myeloma. For this work, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2004. He is survived by his loving wife of 58 years, Jadwiga, his son Robert and daughter-in-law Carol of Bellaire, Texas, and his sister Sabina of New York. The family request that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made either to The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in his name, where the funds will be used to establish an endowed lectureship (www.mdanderson.org/gifts), or by contributing to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (www.ushmm.org).