Yale Bulletin and Calendar

November 7, 2003|Volume 32, Number 10

World-renowned oncologist
Dr. Paul Calabresi passes away

Dr. Paul Calabresi, one of the founders of the medical oncology and cancer clinical pharmacology specialties at Yale, died on Oct. 25 of cancer.

He was 73 years old and lived in Barrington, Rhode Island.

A 1951 graduate of Yale College, Dr. Calabresi earned his M.D. from the Yale School of Medicine in 1955 and joined the Yale faculty after serving his internship and residency on the Harvard Medical Services of the Boston City Hospital. He taught at Yale until 1968, when he moved to Brown University as professor of medical science and as physician-in-chief of Roger Williams General Hospital. He was the founding director of the Brown University Cancer Center and became chair of Brown's Department of Medicine in 1974. In 1991, while continuing his teaching at Brown, he transferred to Rhode Island Hospital.

An internationally recognized oncologist and an authority on the pharmacology of anti-cancer agents, Dr. Calabresi was one of the pioneers in the pharmacological treatment of cancer and developed approaches that led to the cure of such diseases as Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Dr. Calabresi was often called upon to serve in the national planning process for the National Cancer Program. He was appointed by President George Bush as a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board in 1991 and by President Bill Clinton as a member of the three-member President's Cancer Panel in 1995. In 1998, he helped found the National Dialogue on Cancer (NDC), an organization co-chaired by President Bush and Barbara Bush. He remained on the steering committee of the NDC until the time of his death.

In 1999, Dr. Calabresi was appointed by Senator Dianne Feinstein to the National Cancer Legislation Advisory Committee. At the time of his death, he was a member of the Board of Overseers at the E. Bronson Ingram Cancer Center at Vanderbilt University and at Tufts University School of Medicine. At Yale, he chaired the Clinical Pharmacology Advisory Committee for the Yale Cancer Center. He was an honorary life member of the board of directors of the American Cancer Society and was a member of the National Board of Trustees for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Born in Milan, Italy, on April 5, 1930, Paul Calabresi was the son of Dr. Massimo Calabresi and Bianca Maria Finzi-Contini Calabresi. His family was active in the anti-fascist resistance and fled to the United States in 1939, moving to New Haven. Dr. Calabresi attended the Hopkins School in New Haven before Yale.

Dr. Calabresi is survived by his wife of 49 years, Celia Treadway Gow Calabresi; three children, Steven Calabresi of Brookline, Massachusetts, Janice Calabresi Maggs of Arlington, Virginia, and Dr. Peter Calabresi of Baltimore, Maryland; eight grandchildren; and a brother, Guido Calabresi, the former dean of the Yale Law School and Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, who is now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Yale Cancer Center for the Paul Calabresi Lectureship Fund, Office of Medical Development, P.O. Box 7611, New Haven, CT 06519-1714; or to the Paul Calabresi Professorship, Rhode Island Hospital Foundation, Attention Darlena Goodwin; P.O. Box H, Providence, RI 02901.

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