Samuel Strober, MD : An Oral History
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Samuel Strober, Professor of Medicine (Immunology and Rheumatology), shares memories of his career, especially his efforts to eliminate the need for the use of immunosuppressive drugs in organ transplant patients and to develop new protocols for bone marrow transplants. He describes his upbringing in Brooklyn, New York, and his early interest in science, as well as aspects of his undergraduate education at Columbia and his time at Harvard Medical School, where he worked in Joseph Murray’s laboratory. Strober also reflects on collaborations at Stanford, the infrastructure for the translation of laboratory discoveries available in Silicon Valley, setbacks he has faced, and his hopes for the future.
- Summary
- Relatives’ immigration from Ukraine and Russia to the United States • Growing up in a heavily Jewish area in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1940s • Tenement housing • Changes in demographics of Brooklyn • Impact of World War II and the atomic age • Reading science fiction novels • Accordion lessons • Experimenting with explosives; interest in atomic science • Starting a science club in elementary school • Attending Stuyvesant High School and encouragement to pursue science • High school science fair project on separating proteins in blood with a homemade electrophoresis apparatus • Being a finalist in the New York City Science Fair • Trip to Los Angeles for the National Science Fair • Applying to Columbia to study physics • Working in hotels in the Catskills during the summers to pay for college • Balancing physics curriculum with the liberal arts requirements and his later appreciation for the core curriculum • Decision to change from physics to pre-medicine • Taking evolutionary biology from Jonas Bronk • Early interest in transplants • Decision to attend Harvard Medical School • Working in Nobel winner Joseph Murray’s laboratory doing work on transplant tolerance • Importance of Peter Medawar’s work on transplants in mice and efforts to adapt it to adult animals • Alternative service during the Vietnam War doing research at the National Institutes of Health • Offer of residency and faculty position from Stanford • Immunology and Rheumatology Division at the time • Studying radiation as a tool in bone marrow transplantation • Studying impact of TLI radiation on Hodgkin’s Disease patients with Henry Kaplan and adapting Kaplan’s approach to mice • Graft-versus-host-disease • A life’s work on the Holy Grail of drug-free organ transplantation • Reflections on difficulty of balancing work and family • Transition from the East Coast to West Coast • Student anti-war activism at Stanford and Berkeley • Activism by immunology faculty • Focusing career on two major goals • Advances in bone marrow transplantation • Applying things learned to organ transplantation • Setbacks in research • Reducing the number of drugs needed for transplant patients • Mixing donor and host cells in patients’ blood to prevent rejection • Role of commercial enterprise in moving research discoveries to clinical trials • Working with the Office of Technology Licensing • Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley • Founding Dendreon with Ed Engleman • Co-founding a second company working on reducing the need for drugs in kidney transplant patients • Influence of his parents • Advances in therapies to prevent infection • Continuing to do research with younger colleagues • Genetic research breakthroughs • Reflections on Stanford career
Description
| Type of resource | moving image, sound recording-nonmusical, text |
|---|---|
| Extent | 2 video files; 2 audio files; 1 text file; 1 photograph |
| Place | Stanford (Calif.) |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
| Date created | August 6, 2019 - 2019-08-07 |
| Language | English |
| Digital origin | born digital |
Creators/Contributors
| Interviewee | Strober, Samuel | |
|---|---|---|
| Creator | Strober, Samuel | |
| Interviewer | Costello, Paul | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Strober, Samuel |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford University. Department of Microbiology and Immunology |
| Subject | Stanford University. School of Medicine |
| Subject | Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc. |
| Genre | Interview |
Bibliographic information
| Biographical Profile | Dr. Samuel Strober specializes in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. He has practiced rheumatology at Stanford for more than thirty years. He has special interests in the treatment of lupus kidney disease, and in eliminating the lifelong need for immunosuppressive drugs of organ transplant patients. Dr. Strober’s laboratory and clinical research interests are in the area of the molecular and cellular basis of the prevention of graft versus host disease while maintaining graft anti- tumor activity in recipients of bone marrow transplants, the induction of tolerance in recipients of combined organ and hematopoietic cell transplants, and the effective treatment of solid tumors and lymphoma with local tumor radiation regimens that induce potent anti- tumor immune responses. His laboratory research has been translated into ongoing clinical trials of organ and bone marrow transplantation at Stanford. |
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| Transcript |
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| Finding Aid | |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/nd505dh0971 |
| Location | SC0932 |
| Repository | Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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