Ronald Breslow

Breslow, who earned an A.B. in chemistry, A.M. in biochemistry and Ph.D. in organic chemistry, all from Harvard, has worked at Columbia since 1956. Breslow put his conception of biomimetics to work most notably with suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid — SAHA, as he called it in the lab, or Zolinza as it’s marketed by Merck, which owns and manufactures the drug for the treatment of cancer. That breakthrough occurred in 1987, but years of fundraising, development and human trials still lay ahead. In 2001, Breslow, Paul Marks ( then-dean of the Medical School and president emeritus of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center ) and a few other colleagues formed a small company, Aton Pharma, with a license from Columbia for the underlying technology, and in 2004 sold that company to Merck. Breslow and his wife, Esther, a biochemistry professor now retired from Weill Cornell Medical College, used proceeds from the sale of Aton to establish the Esther Breslow Professorship in Organic or Biological Chemistry. (The professorship also was funded by Gerry Lenfest ’58, part of his 2006 pledge to match gifts for endowed faculty chairs in the Arts and Sciences.)