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Paul GoldhaberThe Sixty-second President of the IADR, 1985–86, The Second President of the AADR, 1973–74IADR/AADR Executive Director cfox{at}iadr.org
Paul Goldhaber, Past President of both the International and American Associations for Dental Research, and Dean Emeritus of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, died on July 14, 2008 at the age of 84. A member of the IADR since 1960, he was an active member in the Periodontal Research Scientific Group and the AADR Boston Section. During World War II, Dr. Goldhaber enlisted as a Private in the U.S. Army while attending City College of New York, and New York University College of Dentistry through the Army Specialized Training Program. He obtained his D.D.S. degree in 1948. Following active duty service during the Korean War as a 1st Lieutenant in the Dental Corps, he completed his undergraduate studies at City College in 1954 and obtained his B.S. degree. That same year he completed his specialty training in Periodontology at Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery and moved to Boston to begin his career at Harvard. Dr. Goldhaber’s early years at Harvard in the Department of Oral Pathology were marked by intense research on bone biology, specifically mechanisms of bone resorption. He was appointed full Professor of Periodontology in 1966 at the age of 42 and became Dean of the School two years later. He was one of the longest serving dental deans in US history, serving until 1990. He maintained an active research portfolio while serving as Dean. Dr. Goldhaber made significant contributions to the understanding of periodontal disease, including, but not limited to, developing tissue culture models for studying bone resorption, and studying the specific role of osteoclasts in bone resorption and the role of prostaglandins in promoting bone resorption. He also studied the effects of various antibiotics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs on slowing or blocking disease progression. One of Dr. Goldhaber’s educational innovations as Dean was the addition of a fifth year to the traditional post-baccalaureate four-year curriculum that existed for most dental schools in the United States. Students had the option of either doing research, starting a post-doctoral program, or obtaining a degree from one of the other Harvard graduate programs, such as the Harvard School of Public Health or the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He also developed a four-year postdoctoral program leading to a doctorate of medical sciences in oral biology. Perhaps his greatest legacy is his training of numerous young women and men who have gone on to be leaders in dentistry as academicians, clinicians, and members of industry. In addition to his research and deanship, Dr. Goldhaber was an active contributor to the national and international dialog on science policy, dental research and education, the dental curriculum, and maintaining the science base of the dental profession. He never missed an opportunity to espouse the importance of dental research publicly and spoke often of the "Harvard model" of integrating the dental and medical students in the first two years for the basic science and pathophysiology curriculum. Not the retiring type, Dr. Goldhaber and other IADR leaders even took on the former Director of the NIH after a suggestion that perhaps the NIH should have fewer Institutes. The authors defended the rationale for maintaining the current structure of NIH, including such Institutes as the NIDCR (Goldhaber et al., 2001). Despite declining health, he continued to share his viewpoints on research and education generously throughout his retirement years. He delivered the 2008 commencement address at the UCLA School of Dentistry just six weeks prior to his death—an address which will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Dental Education. Dr. Goldhaber is survived by his wife Ethel Renée Gurland Goldhaber, and sons Samuel Z. Goldhaber, M.D., Professor of Medicine/Cardiology at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Joshua I. Goldhaber, M.D., Professor of Medicine/Cardiology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. The family requests that donations be made to the Dr. Paul Goldhaber Fund at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, 188 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115. FOOTNOTES (Author’s note: I am indebted to the family of Paul Goldhaber for providing certain biographic details and to Paul Goldhaber himself, for creating the five-year HSDM program and the four-year doctor of medical sciences degree program from which I graduated—a training program that has fostered my current career.) REFERENCE
Journal of Dental Research, Vol. 87, No. 9,
798 (2008)
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