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Albert Segaloff, 1916–1985
Albert Segaloff 1916 ---
1985
Dr. Albert Segaloff, editor of STEROIDS for the past 19 years, died on February 26, 1985 at his home after a brief illness. Dr. Segaloff was born on July 25, 1916 in West Haven, Connecticut. He was educated at Yale University in 1937 and received his medical degree from Wayne State University College of Medicine (Detroit) in 194B. He interned at the William J. Seymour Hospital, Eloise, Michigan in 194B, was an assistant in medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1944 and became Director of Endocrine Research, Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1945. He was certified as a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1952, and was also a Clinical Professor of Medicine and Adjunct
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Professor of Pharmacology at Tulane University School of Medicine, and a Clinical Professor of Pathology at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine. Dr. Segaloff was the Chairman of the Cooperative Breast Cancer Group of the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center of the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health from 1956 to 1978.He was also an advisor to the American Cancer Society. Dr. Segaloff had p u b l i s h e d 278 articles in 30 journals, and a medical textbook. He edited three other textbooks and was responsible for chapters in 23 medical texts. Dr. Segaloff was one of the four associate managing editors of STEROIDS in 1963-1966 and was the Editor of STEROIDS from July, 1966 to the time of his death. Dr. Segaloff is survived by his wife, Ann Zaem, w h o m he married on May 9, 1940 and who was his assistant through 40 years of research; a daughter, Ruth Segaloff of Boston; and two sons, David Segaloff of Biloxi, Mississippi and Joel Segaloff of Washington, D.C. Dr. Segaloff the preferred for attracting cal Foundation
was a pioneer in the use of steroids and sex hormones as form of treatment of breast cancer. He was responsible more than $15 million in grants to the Alton 0chsner Mediover the past 40 years.
IN MEMORIAM When I came to New Orleans in December, 1958 to work for Al, I saw the building on Prytania Street where his research work was being carried out. It was an old 2 1/2 story building built in the 1880's, with peeling white paint and more a haven for bats than rats. Its wooden stairs and floors creaked with every step that was trod, and the whole building wheezed and groaned with the slightest whiffs of the prevailing southeasternly breeze. Yet, it was where Al and his group did significant research on steroids that earned him the Ciba Award of the Endocrine Society in 1951. A1 was a very unusual person, capable of excellent research even under the most adverse of environmental and financial circumstances. Al's pride and joy was the new Research Building of the Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, much of which he designed himself. At the time I was in New Orleans, the new facility had not been completed - - - it was nothing but a two story gray concrete skeleton then. Even so, A1 took me there and excitedly showed me where my laboratory would he, with its instrument room and office, and so on. Previously, A1 had asked me what Ilwanted, and he incorporated my suggestions into his design of the new Research Building. The Research Building was finally completed on September, 1959. It was unusual in that it had almost no windows at all to cut down the expense of air-conditioning and heating, and to maximize wall-to-wall utilization of storage cabinets and work benches (and also,
BTmmBOXDS
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I suspect, eliminating the problem of technicians goofing off by looking at the Mississippi River which the building faced). A1 did not like the idea of major surgery as the only way out for women with breast cancer. He was a firm believer that hormonal chemotherapy would enable one to avoid the physiological and psYchological trauma of radical mastectomy. He was quite successful with his ideas of chemotherapy. A1 loved children very much even if he was against overpopulation and advocated the use of contraceptives by men and/or women. However, he had always maintained that there was a vast difference between populating and overpopulating. A1 delighted in showing the children who visited the Research Building his aquarium with the awesome goldfish that were fed rat food instead of fish food - - - with the result that the fish looked like they had been given a good slug of somatotropin. They were as big as perches~ I was very fortunate that A1 shared in and encouraged my enthusiasm for research into the structure-activity relationships of steroids. We synthesized 541 steroids - - - some "old stuff" and some new - - - over 27 years. Among them were the most potent androgen (7a-methyl-14-dehydro-19-nortestosterone) and the most potent estrogen (llB-formoxyestrone) ever found. Our publications were signed either as "Gabbard and Segaloff" or "Segaloff and Gabbard" depending on who thought of the topic first. Now, w i t h a l gone, I feel that half of me has been amputated. Another "baby" that A1 dearly loved was the journal STEROIDS. In 1962, A1 confided in me that two of his best friends, Drs. Ralph Dorfman and Mika Hayano of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, intended to co-found and co-edit a new journal, STEROIDS, to be published by Holden-Day, Inc. We wrote a paper (on 14-dehydro steroids) for the first issue of STEROIDS in January, 1963. That was the start of the "love affair" A1 would have with STEROIDS for 19 years. After the untimely death of Dr. Hayano in 1964 and Dr. Dorfman's relocation to Syntex at Palo Alto, California, Al accepted the editorship of STEROIDS on July,1966. He knew that his capable wife, Ann, could effectively reorganize the procedures for reviewing and accepting manuscripts which she did, admirably. I was invited by Al to join the Editorial Board of Steroids in January, 1971. It was then that I appreciated the way Al dealt with other people; his letters to authors were always tactful and diplomatic even where I would have suggested that certain authors needed psychiatric treatment. al has publicly and privately warned prospective authors against misrepresenting data to fit one's own pet conclusions. Also, there was the humorous truth in what AI said about the prevention of breast cancer~ if he had his way, all breast cancer could be prevented by mammectomizing all female babies at birth. Al has taught many of us a lesson - that it is much better to realiztically evaluate and guard our conclusions than to be overly optimistic about a treatment or result. He
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considered premature and unrealistically optimistic disclosures of a method of treatment (such as Krebiozen or Laetrile) as a crime akin to murder. It is a special tribute to Al's principles of professional conduet that he has never been sued for malpractice in his 42 years of service in a particularly vulnerable medical field. I miss Al a lot. So will his ex-patients, his co-workers, his colleagues, his friends and his family. He was a person with a high sense of family, professional ethics, and public service. The world has lost one of the best researchers in the field of endocrinology and steroid research. R. Bruce Gabbard, Ph.D. Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation New Orleans, Louisiana, 70121 USA
1985
Dr. Albert Segaloff, editor of STEROIDS for the past 19 years, died on February 26, 1985 at his home after a brief illness. Dr. Segaloff was born on July 25, 1916 in West Haven, Connecticut. He was educated at Yale University in 1937 and received his medical degree from Wayne State University College of Medicine (Detroit) in 194B. He interned at the William J. Seymour Hospital, Eloise, Michigan in 194B, was an assistant in medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1944 and became Director of Endocrine Research, Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1945. He was certified as a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1952, and was also a Clinical Professor of Medicine and Adjunct
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X ~
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Professor of Pharmacology at Tulane University School of Medicine, and a Clinical Professor of Pathology at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine. Dr. Segaloff was the Chairman of the Cooperative Breast Cancer Group of the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center of the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health from 1956 to 1978.He was also an advisor to the American Cancer Society. Dr. Segaloff had p u b l i s h e d 278 articles in 30 journals, and a medical textbook. He edited three other textbooks and was responsible for chapters in 23 medical texts. Dr. Segaloff was one of the four associate managing editors of STEROIDS in 1963-1966 and was the Editor of STEROIDS from July, 1966 to the time of his death. Dr. Segaloff is survived by his wife, Ann Zaem, w h o m he married on May 9, 1940 and who was his assistant through 40 years of research; a daughter, Ruth Segaloff of Boston; and two sons, David Segaloff of Biloxi, Mississippi and Joel Segaloff of Washington, D.C. Dr. Segaloff the preferred for attracting cal Foundation
was a pioneer in the use of steroids and sex hormones as form of treatment of breast cancer. He was responsible more than $15 million in grants to the Alton 0chsner Mediover the past 40 years.
IN MEMORIAM When I came to New Orleans in December, 1958 to work for Al, I saw the building on Prytania Street where his research work was being carried out. It was an old 2 1/2 story building built in the 1880's, with peeling white paint and more a haven for bats than rats. Its wooden stairs and floors creaked with every step that was trod, and the whole building wheezed and groaned with the slightest whiffs of the prevailing southeasternly breeze. Yet, it was where Al and his group did significant research on steroids that earned him the Ciba Award of the Endocrine Society in 1951. A1 was a very unusual person, capable of excellent research even under the most adverse of environmental and financial circumstances. Al's pride and joy was the new Research Building of the Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, much of which he designed himself. At the time I was in New Orleans, the new facility had not been completed - - - it was nothing but a two story gray concrete skeleton then. Even so, A1 took me there and excitedly showed me where my laboratory would he, with its instrument room and office, and so on. Previously, A1 had asked me what Ilwanted, and he incorporated my suggestions into his design of the new Research Building. The Research Building was finally completed on September, 1959. It was unusual in that it had almost no windows at all to cut down the expense of air-conditioning and heating, and to maximize wall-to-wall utilization of storage cabinets and work benches (and also,
BTmmBOXDS
3
I suspect, eliminating the problem of technicians goofing off by looking at the Mississippi River which the building faced). A1 did not like the idea of major surgery as the only way out for women with breast cancer. He was a firm believer that hormonal chemotherapy would enable one to avoid the physiological and psYchological trauma of radical mastectomy. He was quite successful with his ideas of chemotherapy. A1 loved children very much even if he was against overpopulation and advocated the use of contraceptives by men and/or women. However, he had always maintained that there was a vast difference between populating and overpopulating. A1 delighted in showing the children who visited the Research Building his aquarium with the awesome goldfish that were fed rat food instead of fish food - - - with the result that the fish looked like they had been given a good slug of somatotropin. They were as big as perches~ I was very fortunate that A1 shared in and encouraged my enthusiasm for research into the structure-activity relationships of steroids. We synthesized 541 steroids - - - some "old stuff" and some new - - - over 27 years. Among them were the most potent androgen (7a-methyl-14-dehydro-19-nortestosterone) and the most potent estrogen (llB-formoxyestrone) ever found. Our publications were signed either as "Gabbard and Segaloff" or "Segaloff and Gabbard" depending on who thought of the topic first. Now, w i t h a l gone, I feel that half of me has been amputated. Another "baby" that A1 dearly loved was the journal STEROIDS. In 1962, A1 confided in me that two of his best friends, Drs. Ralph Dorfman and Mika Hayano of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, intended to co-found and co-edit a new journal, STEROIDS, to be published by Holden-Day, Inc. We wrote a paper (on 14-dehydro steroids) for the first issue of STEROIDS in January, 1963. That was the start of the "love affair" A1 would have with STEROIDS for 19 years. After the untimely death of Dr. Hayano in 1964 and Dr. Dorfman's relocation to Syntex at Palo Alto, California, Al accepted the editorship of STEROIDS on July,1966. He knew that his capable wife, Ann, could effectively reorganize the procedures for reviewing and accepting manuscripts which she did, admirably. I was invited by Al to join the Editorial Board of Steroids in January, 1971. It was then that I appreciated the way Al dealt with other people; his letters to authors were always tactful and diplomatic even where I would have suggested that certain authors needed psychiatric treatment. al has publicly and privately warned prospective authors against misrepresenting data to fit one's own pet conclusions. Also, there was the humorous truth in what AI said about the prevention of breast cancer~ if he had his way, all breast cancer could be prevented by mammectomizing all female babies at birth. Al has taught many of us a lesson - that it is much better to realiztically evaluate and guard our conclusions than to be overly optimistic about a treatment or result. He
4
8
.L- Im I L o
z ~ m
considered premature and unrealistically optimistic disclosures of a method of treatment (such as Krebiozen or Laetrile) as a crime akin to murder. It is a special tribute to Al's principles of professional conduet that he has never been sued for malpractice in his 42 years of service in a particularly vulnerable medical field. I miss Al a lot. So will his ex-patients, his co-workers, his colleagues, his friends and his family. He was a person with a high sense of family, professional ethics, and public service. The world has lost one of the best researchers in the field of endocrinology and steroid research. R. Bruce Gabbard, Ph.D. Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation New Orleans, Louisiana, 70121 USA