Emmanuel Farber, a pathologist who made contributions to the understanding of chemical carcinogenesis, died Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014.
Farber’s studies in experimental pathology demonstrated that chemical carcinogens are capable of binding to nucleic acids, in turn generating specific DNA adducts. This led to the observation that chemical carcinogenesis is a sequential process, and he proved this theory by showing that cancer could be induced through a series of step-by-step chemical treatments in the liver, according to an obituary published by the American Association for Cancer Research.
Farber served on the surgeon general’s first Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health from 1961 to 1964. The committee was responsible for issuing the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on the dangers of smoking and tobacco-related disease.
Farber was born in Toronto Oct. 19, 1918. He received his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1942. After completing his residency training in pathology at the Hamilton General Hospital, he served in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, and later obtained a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.
This is an excerpt of an article that was published in full in The Cancer Letter.
