Richard Edelson

Richard Edelson grew up in New Jersey, where his father ran a dermatology practice. ^[1] Edelson graduated from Hamilton College with an undergraduate degree in Chemistry, before earning his MD at the Yale School of Medicine in 1970. Following his graduation, at the height of the Vietnam War, Edelson applied to perform research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and, as formally part of the Navy, fulfilled the mandatory military service obligation. These positions combined “highly specialized clinical care with advanced scientific research” according to Yale Medical School.^[1] He then was further trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago and Dermatology at Harvard.^[2]

When at the NIH, he was assigned to the National Cancer Institute, from 1972 to 1975, where he held the rank of Lieutenant Commander and simultaneously was an immunology research fellow at the National Cancer Institute and was in charge of lymphoma patients. Here he discovered that lymphoma with prominent skin involvement was commonly a special kind of cancer, which he entitled ‘cutaneous T-cell lymphoma” or CTCL.^[1][3] He next became an assistant professor of dermatology at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.^[4] Edelson credits his time at NCI for inspiring him to pursue a career in cancer immunology, while studying early T cell biology. He became a full professor at Columbia in 1980.^[1]

While at Columbia, he served as Director of the Immunobiology Group in Columbia University's nationally designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 1982 he invented the photopheresis treatment of CTCL. The process drained blood from the patient using an IV, in order to use the photoactivated DNA-crosslinking drug methoxsalen outside of the body in order to kill cancer cells before returning the blood into the patient’s body. Initially, he believed that this would be a stalling tactic for the cancer’s growth, however it cured two of the first five patients of their condition after just three sessions. In the long run, this led to his team’s discovery of the process where the body signals monocytes to become dendritic cells, the master switch of the selective human immune system. In 1988 Edelson’s invention, became the first immunotherapy for any cancer to be approved by the FDA.^[1] He also served as Associate Director of Columbia's General Clinical Research Center and Professor and Director of Research in Columbia's Dermatology Department.

In 1986 he was recruited by a national search committee to return to the Yale School of Medicine as Tenured Professor and Chairman of the Yale Department of Dermatology.^[2] He held that position for 37 years until 2022, completing one of the longest departmental chairmanships in the history of Yale University. While remaining a full-time Yale faculty member, he elected to relinquish his major administrative responsibilities to focus on his research team's efforts to extend his career-long efforts to produce T cell-based individualized cancer vaccines for the treatment of a broad range of immunogenic malignancies, permissive control of transplanted organs (heart, lung, liver and kidneys), as well as autoimmune disorders (lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and blood dyscrasias).

While department chair, Edelson also served in two other Yale leadership positions - Director of the Yale Cancer Center,^[5] between 2003 and 2008 and Deputy Dean of Yale School of Medicine from 2000 to 2003, overseeing all clinical departments. As Cancer Center Director he secured a renewed grant from the National Cancer Institute for $1.87 million annually, which has designated the Yale Cancer Center the only Comprehensive Cancer Center in southern New England as of the end of his tenure.^[6] He also oversaw the building of the new cancer hospital and restructured the Cancer Center’s integration of clinical care and scientific inquiry. In 2008, he was named the first Lerner Professor of Dermatology.^[7] As a mentor, sixteen of his physician trainees have gone on to lead Dermatology departments at US medical schools and abroad, including at leading departments at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, NYU and Oregon.^[1]