Remembering Gerald D. Fischbach, MD
Dear CUIMC Community,
It is with great sadness that I share the passing of Gerald D. Fischbach, MD, who served as executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences at Columbia University, dean of the faculty of medicine for the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and as a faculty member in our departments of pharmacology and neuroscience from 2001 to 2006.
Dr. Fischbach was a visionary leader, remembered for his great intellectual curiosity and the consideration and care he demonstrated for members of our community. His dedication transformed our medical center and medical college, with long-lasting impacts across our missions. Among his many accomplishments, he oversaw a campus-wide strategic planning process; led many notable recruitments; established a stem cell consortium at Columbia; advanced translational science to accelerate the adoption of scientific advances into patient care; and launched a $1 billion, seven-year capital campaign.
A renowned neurobiologist and physician-scientist, Dr. Fischbach investigated the formation and maintenance of synapses, the connections between nerve cells and their targets through which information is transferred in the nervous system. He pioneered the use of nerve cell cultures to explore how these connections develop, including their electrical activity, structure, and biochemistry. His laboratory also identified ARIA, a protein that directs muscle cells to build acetylcholine receptors at the nerve-muscle junction.
Throughout his career, Dr. Fischbach was a generous and encouraging mentor to generations of neuroscientists and educated, trained, and inspired many of the thought leaders and scientists who are shaping the field of neuroscience today.
Before joining Columbia, Dr. Fischbach was the director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health and also served as the Edison Professor of Neurobiology and chair of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis and as the Nathan March Pusey Professor of Neurobiology and chair of the Neurobiology departments at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Fischbach was widely published and contributed to his field as a past president of the Society of Neuroscience; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a non-resident fellow of the Salk Institute; and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine.
In 2006, Dr. Fischbach joined the Simons Foundation as founding director of the foundation’s Autism Research Initiative, and later its first Chief Scientist, where he championed research that revolutionized the neurobiological understanding of autism.
There will be a service to remember Dr. Fischbach on Friday, October 30th at 11:00am at Riverside Memorial Chapel (180 West 76th St.) In lieu of flowers, a donation can be made to the Mind Brain and Behavior Initiative at Colgate University: https://www.colgate.edu/give
The service will also be livestreamed for those who cannot attend. Please use this link to join:https://www.legacycelebrated.com/gerald-fischbach/
Admired for his benevolence and kindness, Dr. Fischbach will be dearly missed. We offer our deepest condolences to Dr. Fischbach’s wife, Ruth L. Fischbach, PhD, a longtime member of the Columbia faculty as professor of bioethics in both the Department of Psychiatry and the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and to their children, grandchildren, and extended family.
Sincerely,
James McKiernan, MD
Interim Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Interim Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University
CEO, ColumbiaDoctors