MARC WEKSLER

1937 - 2024

WEKSLER--Marc E. M.D., passed away peacefully at home in Tenafly, NJ on March 11, 2024, after a long illness, with Mozart playing on the i-Pad, and with his wife of 65 years, Babette Barbash Weksler, M.D. and his two children, David Weksler and Jennifer Weksler Keller (Chris) at his bedside. He also leaves two grandchildren, Justine Keller and Alex Keller, and many first cousins. Born in Brooklyn April 16, 1937 to Jacob Weksler D.D.S and Lillian (Epstein) Weksler, Marc attended Midwood High School, received an honors degree from Swarthmore College, and his M.D. at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. While in medical school he also was selected as an International Fellow at Columbia University. Following medical residency at Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and nephrology fellowship at Georgetown University Hospital, he won a US Public Health Service Fellowship at St. Mary's Hospital in London, England in transplant immunology where his entire family lived for a year. He then joined the faculty at Cornell University Medical College. Armed with the first award made to Cornell from the new National Institute of Aging he began studying how the immune system changes in aging, winning continuous NIH funding for over 40 years. He was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians and the Interurban Clinical Club. In 1978 he was appointed as Irving S. Wright Professor of Geriatrics and Gerontology, the first US named chair in this field, a post he held for 34 years. He trained many fellows in clinical geriatrics as Chief of the Division of Geriatrics at Cornell. He served as president of the American Federation for Aging Research, was elected to membership in the Royal Society of Medicine in London, consultant to the OECD in Paris, and belonged to the European society "IMAGE" devoted to the immunology of aging. Closer to home, he served on Tenafly's Board of Health. With a colleague, he set up a workplace and senior-center based treatment program for hypertension in New York City, run mainly by nurses; it outperformed services run by doctors. He served as editor of the Journal of Clinical Immunology and on several editorial boards. His curiosity and global interest took him to multiple sabbaticals at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, developing many European colleagues and friendships. His international lectures also took him across Asia and North Africa. In collaboration with Italian colleagues, he met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican to discuss aging. Marc believed in a life well lived as a scientist, world traveler, lover of the arts and family man. He was an avid tennis player well into his 70s. He studied French late in life so he could lecture in it. His wide-ranging curiosity took him and his family to venture globally, as when they went camping in the Soviet Union. He was an astute collector of art prints and paintings, Iznik ceramics, Coptic textiles, and Oriental rugs, which decorated his home. He collected books on fine art and medical history, and belonged to the Osler Society. He also believed in sharing his interests, donating art books to the New York Public Library and Wells College Department of Books. Berea College similarly received many art prints from his collection. Classical music was a lifelong passion. He hosted piano recitals at his home and was a Metropolitan Opera subscriber for over 50 years. After enjoying concerts at Florida Gulf Coast University, he and Babette endowed piano performance scholarships there to support classical musicianship. They also endowed scholarships at Swarthmore College for students interested in medicine and in the environment. His family thanks his devoted health aides Sherma Maxwell and Joseph Ahiabile for their superb care and the Visiting Nurse Association Hospice of Englewood, NJ. A memorial service in Tenafly is planned for April. Contributions in Marc's memory: to the Alzheimer's Association or to Doctors Without Borders.