Dr. Marshall R. Urist of Los Angeles, California, died at
his home on February 4, 2001, after a lengthy illness. Dr. Urist had
been associated with the University of California at Los Angeles
since 1948.
Dr. Urist was born in Chicago and lived on a small farm in South
Haven, Michigan. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the
University of Michigan in 1936 and a Master of Science degree from
the University of Chicago in 1937. He then attended the Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine, where he received his MD degree in
1941. After completing an internship in surgery at Johns Hopkins
Hospital, he entered the orthopaedic residency program at Children’s
Hospital School in Baltimore, Maryland. It was in Baltimore that he
met and successfully courted Alice Elizabeth Pfund, daughter of
Herman Pfund, Professor of Physics at Johns Hopkins University.
Marshall and Alice were married in 1941.
In 1943, Dr. Urist enlisted in the United States Army and his unit
was eventually assigned to England, where he served as the Chief
of Orthopaedic Surgery. He was appointed Regional Consultant of
the 802nd Hospital Center and then in 1945 was designated Chief
of Orthopaedic Surgery of the 97th General Hospital in Germany.
He was assigned to the Surgeon General’s office in 1946
to record the advances made during World War II in the management
of compound fractures of the lower extremity. For his efforts, he
received the Sir Henry Wellcome Award for a Major Advance in Military
Surgery in 1947. He also received a Bronze Star and two special
citations from General Leonard Heaton and General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
After resigning from the military, he became a senior resident at
Massachusetts General Hospital and completed his training with a
fellowship in orthopaedic surgery at Children’s Hospital
in Boston, where he worked on the management of poliomyelitis. He
returned to the University of Chicago in 1947 as an Instructor and
Research Associate in the Department of Physiology, where he worked
with Dr. Franklin McLean, who became his mentor. In 1948, he joined
the faculty of the new School of Medicine at the University of California
at Los Angeles as an Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Surgery. He was
promoted to Associate Professor in 1954 and to Professor of Surgery,
Orthopaedics in 1969.
Dr. Urist contributed to the discipline of orthopaedic surgery in
many ways. First, he pursued an interest in basic research. In 1950,
Drs. Urist, Budy, and McLean received a Kappa Delta Award for their
work on the effects of estrogen on bone formation. In 1955, Drs.
Urist and McLean collaborated on Bone: An Introduction to
the Physiology of Skeletal Tissue, which was revised and
reprinted in 1961 and 1968. Dr. Urist’s attention then
extended to the identification of an inductor substance for bone
formation. His initial report, entitled "Bone: Formation
by Autoinduction," appeared in Science in
1965 and was designated a landmark publication. For the remainder
of his career, he worked to isolate and identify this factor, which
he again reported on in Science in 1983, in an
article entitled "Bone Cell Differentiation and Growth
Factors." We now know that there is a family of bone morphogenetic
proteins (BMPs), several of which have been synthesized and have
demonstrated osteoinductive capacity. Specific BMPs have been shown
to have an important role in skeletal differentiation. Dr. Urist’s
research efforts resulted in the publication of over 400 papers
and the presentation of more than 200 lectures throughout the world.
Under his supervision at UCLA, patients with difficult nonunions
and bone defects have been successfully treated with native BMPs.
Marshall served as Editor of Clinical Orthopaedics and
Related Research from 1966 to 1993. His format of presenting
a specific topic or symposium with a respected guest editor was
unique. Some of these subjects were controversial and represented
early presentations of important topics. The blend of symposia,
original publications, and classic articles reflected Marshall’s varied
interests and leadership. He was frequently found working on weekends
in the editorial office that he established adjacent to his laboratories.
Dr. Urist received many other awards and honors, including two
Kappa Delta Awards, the Claude Bernard Medal, a John Simon Guggenheim
Foundation Fellowship, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Zimmer
Distinguished Award for Achievement in Orthopaedic Research. He
received an honorary degree in Medicine from the University of Lund
and an Honorary Fellowship and Degree from the Royal College of
Surgeons, Edinburgh. He gave the Shands Lecture at the Combined Meeting
of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Orthopaedic
Research Society in 1981 on "Bone Cell Differentiation." The
Orthopaedic Research Society honored Marshall by establishing an
annual award in his name for Excellence in Tissue Research. Marshall
was a past President of the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons,
the Society of International Research in Orthopaedic Surgery and
Traumatology (SIROT), and the Hip Society.
Marshall particularly enjoyed his visits to his avocado farm, Bone
Hill, in Fallbrook, California, and he would frequently provide
his visitors and laboratory staff with avocados, accompanied by
an instructional discourse regarding their species and growing characteristics.
He loved to attend UCLA basketball games with his children and,
in later years, with his grandchildren. He also loved to attend
movies with his wife, Alice, and he read extensively. Their home
was always open for holidays, and frequently their special occasions
were shared with the many foreign fellows who spent a year in the Bone
Research Laboratory at UCLA.
Marshall Urist is survived by his wife and life partner, Alice; their
children, Nancy Miller, John Baxter Urist, and Marshall Urist Jr.,
an oncologic surgeon at the University of Alabama School of Medicine;
and eight grandchildren.
—G.F.