It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our colleague, collaborator and friend, Alexander S. Brodsky, PhD. Alex was an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and had been a valued faculty member of the Legorreta Cancer Center.
Alex began his scientific career in RNA biology. He completed undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania before moving to MIT for graduate work, where his PhD focused on solving RNA structures by NMR. Alex expanded the scope of his expertise to the field of genomics during his postdoctoral training at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. There he elucidated fundamental mechanisms of RNA export from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, leveraging early genomic technologies to produce a body of published work funded by Ruth L. Kirschstein and NIH fellowship awards.
Alex joined the Brown faculty in 2005, first in the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry and later the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital. He was a longtime affiliate of the Center for Computational Molecular Biology and the Brown Center for Genomics and Proteomics. As a lab head Alex was generous with his time, and thrived in his role of mentor to his students, technicians and postdoctoral trainees.
As an investigator at Brown, Alex's interests pivoted to cancer research, in particular using computational approaches to understand the remodeling of extracellular matrix composition that supports tumor growth. It is a tragic irony that Alex would contract the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma, a topic he pursued with collaborators at the Legorreta Cancer Center. In the wake of his passing, we are reminded of the need for effective treatments for glioblastoma which Alex sought to advance. We are inspired with renewed determination to make a positive impact to the outcomes of patients so profoundly burdened by this disease.
Over the last two years Alex and his devoted wife Adina made the most of their time together, traveling with family between treatments and packing in every moment of happiness in the days remaining. Alex was fully engaged in science to the end, marked by spirited reviews of new data and several recent publications. While his loss leaves an undeniable void, Alex also leaves a living legacy of curiosity in the minds of his many students, colleagues and friends.
Paul Bertone, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine
Sean Lawler, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine