NIH Scientist Leads Fight Against Cancer, AIDS: For more than five decades, scientist Thomas Waldmann's cutting-edge research at the National Institutes of Health has resulted in significant advances in the treatment of patients with cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis, including new therapies for previously fatal forms of T-cell leukemia and Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"Tom is an icon, he's dedicated to making science discoveries and moving them to the clinic where they can benefit people," Waldmann's NIH colleague, Robert Wiltrout, said. "People like Tom are extremely rare."
Waldmann, chief of the Metabolism Branch at NIH, has been at the national research center since graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1955.
Like many accomplished federal employees, Waldmann could have sought private-sector employment, but his dedication to public science kept him at NIH.
"I thought I was going to be here for two years, but I became so excited with the opportunities to do research and the ability to develop our own drugs and produce these in a way that can be administered to people and be able to do my own clinical trials to treat patients," Waldmann said. "It was not matched, not in industry, not in academia."
Waldmann said NIH was in its infancy when he arrived 54 years ago and quite different than the institution it has become. Scientists in that day, he said, "knew nothing about the immune system," but over time the body of knowledge has grown exponentially.
A key area of concentration for Waldmann has been the field of cytokines -- the molecules that control human immune responses. He was intimately involved in the development of the groundbreaking medicine Zenapax, which has been associated with complete remission in over 60 percent of patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma who did not respond to any other treatment.
Zenapax also has been used to help reduce the body's rejection of renal transplants, a discovery that has increased survival rates of kidney transplant recipients. In addition, Waldmann and his fellow NIH scientists were responsible for developing the Zenapax therapy for patients with autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, helping to achieve a 78 percent reduction in new brain lesions for patients that were studied.
"Carrying out clinical studies is a real challenge and it has become more so in the past years," Stephen Katz, the director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, said.
"The challenge to get the product to meet quality control standards is extremely hard, but Tom has been unwavering in his commitment to doing so. He did it all himself, he went to all the meetings himself and made sure it got done. He paved the way for others," Katz said.
Katz said that Waldmann, throughout his long career, has been "committed to using science for the betterment of humanity."
At age 78, Waldmann has no plans to retire because he believes there are many medical breakthroughs on the horizon.
"We have just begun," he said.
This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Visit www.ourpublicservice.org for more about the organization's work.
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