AD Field Loses Pioneer With Robert Katzman’s Passing

Robert Katzman, a leader in the field of Alzheimer’s research, died at his home in La Jolla, California, last week. He was 82. The Alzforum has created a tribute page and invites any who knew him to share their thoughts and memories.

“From many perspectives—medical, scientific, public policy, teaching, and education—Katzman was what I would consider a unique pioneer,” said Zaven Khachaturian, who, as former Director of the Office of Alzheimer's Disease Research at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, knew Katzman well. Khachaturian now heads Keep Memory Alive, a not-for-profit based in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Katzman influenced the Alzheimer field in many ways. “He and his colleague Robert Terry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine are the two prominently known in the United States for really getting Alzheimer’s on the map,” said Khachaturian. Together they were the first to use electron microscopy to identify the fine anatomical and molecular structure of the lesions that characterize the disease.

In 1976, when many thought senile dementia was a normal part of aging, Katzman wrote an editorial in Archives of Neurology that identified Alzheimer’s as a major public health problem (see Katzman, 1976). “That is considered by many to be a seminal article,” said Khachaturian. A year later, Katzman and Terry organized and published the proceedings of a workshop at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC, which brought in most of the prominent researchers from around the world. “That volume is perhaps one of the most important early volumes that identified all of the major areas of research and issues with respect to Alzheimer’s,” suggested Khachaturian.

Besides his clinical work, Katzman was heavily involved in public policy and advocacy. He was a major driving force in setting up the Alzheimer’s Association, tried to get the NIH to pay more attention to the disease, and testified many times before Congress.

Katzman continued to change with the field. In his early work he was interested in basic research—neurotransmitters and signaling—then became interested in clinical research, and in later years he became enamored with epidemiology. “He did one of the very first, important epidemiological studies showing that lack of education played an important role as a risk factor,” said Khachaturian (see his 1993 review).

Katzman’s legacy extends beyond his own contributions. He was a mentor to many future leaders in the field, including the late Leon Thal and others who got their training at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. “He was very generous, very shy, and by no means a self-promoter,” said Khachaturian. Both the L.A. Times and The New York Times carried extensive obituaries.—Tom Fagan.

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References

News Citations

  1. A Tribute to Robert Katzman
  2. Leon Thal Dies In Plane Crash

Paper Citations

  1. Katzman R. Editorial: The prevalence and malignancy of Alzheimer disease. A major killer. Arch Neurol. 1976 Apr;33(4):217-8. PubMed.
  2. Katzman R. Education and the prevalence of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Neurology. 1993 Jan;43(1):13-20. PubMed.

External Citations

  1. L.A. Times
  2. The New York Times

Further Reading

News

  1. A Tribute to Robert Katzman

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