RONALD F. RIEDER, M.D., Class of 1958

I entered the NYU School of Medicine with the vague notion that I would try for a career in medical research. This idea had surfaced during my time at the Bronx High School of Science and was strengthened at Swarthmore College. NYU was an excellent environment to foster a career in academic medicine. Many of the faculty were engaged in exciting research in various areas of clinical and experimental medicine and were sympathetic and encouraging to students desiring to obtain experience in their laboratories. I was also stimulated to do research by contact with classmates with like-minded goals, several of whom later went on to distinguished scientific careers. During my third and fourth years as a medical student I worked part-time on a research project on bacterial endotoxins in the laboratory of Dr. Lewis Thomas, chairman of the pathology department. He was a charismatic, inspiring mentor and a seminal thinker on medical and biological matters. I wrote a paper on the work and was delighted when it was published in the Journal of Immunology. I even won a prize at graduation for the research. Thus the undergraduate medical school period was a wonderful and exciting time for me and further encouraged my drive toward an academic medical career.

After graduation I spent two years as a house-officer on the NYU medical service at Bellevue Hospital again under Dr. Thomas who had moved to become chairman of the Department of Medicine. The internship-residency program at Bellevue Hospital was a rigorous experience both intellectually and physically. There was a sort of baptism by fire for the new doctors with instant immersion in the work on large, crowded, open wards and a hectic alternate night, alternate week-end on-call schedule. The medical service was very busy with a continuous high rate of new admissions. I distinctly remember one medical resident finally finishing his daily ward rounds at night, after lights-out, visiting each of his patients by flashlight. We were responsible for the care of large numbers of extremely ill patients. Although attending physicians from the NYU medical faculty made consultation rounds with us every day, the service was in reality house-officer-directed. Decision-making and delivery of care were primarily the jobs and responsibilities of the intern and the resident. It was an unmatched but tough learning experience and a rapid maturing process.

After two years at Bellevue Hospital I returned to laboratory research, first in the Department of Microbiology at NYU where I worked on antibody structure and function, and then for a year at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in the Laboratory of Analytical Immunochemistry under Dr. Jacques Oudin, originator of gel-diffusion analysis of antigen-antibody reactions. (My most important discovery in that lab was my future wife! See below.)

During my time at Bellevue Hospital I was attracted to hematology as an area of clinical specialization and following my laboratory research training I embarked on a hematology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At Hopkins I developed a life-long interest in abnormal hemoglobins and the thalassemia syndromes. After two years in Baltimore I returned to New York City and in 1967 accepted an offer from Dr. Ludwig Eichna, whom I had known at NYU, to join his Department of Medicine at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn as an assistant professor in the Division of Hematology. I knew many of the young faculty in the Department who were recent products of the program at NYU and had followed Dr. Eichna to Brooklyn when he accepted the Chair of Medicine. I remained at SUNY Downstate for the rest of my professional career except for a sabbatical year, 1975-76, as a Josiah Macy Foundation Fellow at the University of Oxford. From 1976-88 I was the Director of Hematology at SUNY Downstate and the Kings County Hospital. In August 2007 I retired as Professor of Medicine and Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology.

My research efforts centered on various aspects of abnormal human hemoglobins and the thalassemia syndromes. Examples of the types of studies carried out in my laboratory included: the characterization of the structure, synthesis, and clinical presentations of several new unstable hemoglobins associated with hemolytic anemia; the description of the alpha globin gene chromosomal arrangements in African-Americans with alpha thalassemia; the characterization of a dysfunctional mutant alpha globin gene in African-Americans with alpha thalassemia; translation studies of beta globin mRNA in beta thalassemia and the S and C hemoglobinopathies; the first description of alpha thalassemia in eastern European Ashkenazi Jews; a demonstration of diminished growth of Falciparum malaria parasites in human alpha thalassemia erythrocytes in vitro. My laboratory was supported for thirty years by research grants from the NIH.

In addition to laboratory research, my activities at SUNY Downstate included attending rounds in hematology and general medicine at Kings County Hospital teaching the students, medical residents and hematology fellows. For several years I directed the Hematology-Oncology course given to the second-year medical students.

Besides my research and teaching activities at Downstate, I served various outside organizations such as: New York Heart Association, Health Research Council of the City of New York, New York Community Trust, American Society of Hematology, Cooley’s Anemia Foundation, NIH Special Study Section on Therapy of Sickle Cell Anemia, NIH Study Section on General Clinical Research Centers, FDA Orphan Products Grants Panel, NIH Review Committee on Thalassemia Clinical Research Network.

I was elected to the academic honor medical societies, the Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. I have been listed in Who’s Who in the East, American Men and Women of Science, and the Best Doctors in New York.

My wife, Daniele (the greatest gift from France to the United States since the Statue of Liberty), and I have been married for 46 years and we have two children, David and Isabelle, each of whom presented us with a grandson within the past 12 months. David is on the English faculty at North Carolina State University teaching rhetoric and communication theory. His wife teaches Latin American literature at NCSU. Isabelle is a human resources expert and has worked for Newsweek and Macys.Com. Her husband directs the electronic communication and computer systems at Newsweek. My wife and I have lived in Manhasset on Long Island since 1972. We subscribe to the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. I used to sail a small boat, mainly single-handed, on Manhasset Bay and Long Island Sound but gave it up several years ago. Since retirement I have spent my time reading history and some literary classics I had missed while busy doing medicine and science. I still subscribe to the New England Journal of Medicine and Science magazine. I also occupy my time with digital photography processing images on the computer and printing the photos. My main photographic subject during the past year has been my new grandson. I recently began studying the Chinese language. (We will see how long that lasts!).

My career in academic medicine was rewarding adventure. Research discoveries, no matter how small, were always thrilling to me. Clinical medicine is a fascinating field and the progress in knowledge since graduation has amazed me. Lunch-time conversations with faculty were enlightening and great fun. If by some feat of magic I could make a choice of career over again I would follow essentially the same path. When I am asked how much I enjoy my retirement my usual response is that it is pleasant and the lack of pressure is very nice but that I miss being 30 years of age and working my head off!