Thomas P. Stossel (September 10, 1941 – September 29, 2019) was an American hematologist, inventor, medical researcher, and writer that discovered gelsolin, and invented the BioAegis technology estate. He was also a professor emeritus of medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor emeritus of clinical research at the American Cancer Society. He was Chief Scientific Advisor to BioAegis Therapeutics Inc., a clinical stage biotech company developing a non-immunosuppressive, anti-inflammatory with potential to address a wide range of infectious, inflammatory and degenerative diseases. He is the holder of more than 50 patents and had authored more than 300 papers, studies, and reviews. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine, past editor-in-chief of Current Opinion in Hematology and past editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, past president of the American Society of Hematology and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
Education and career
Stossel majored in English at Princeton University graduating in 1963. He went on to Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and was a staff associate at the National Heart Institute after which he received training in hematology at Boston Children's and Peter Bent Brigham Hospitals. He was chief of hematology-oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1976 to 1991), head of experimental medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital (1991–1998), co-director of hematology (1998–2006) and translational medicine (2011–2014) at that institution. He served on the scientific advisory boards of Biogen, Inc. (1997–2002), Dyax, Inc. (1991–2001) and has been a director of Velico Medical Inc. since 2000. He was president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and of the American Society of Hematology, served on the Lasker Awards' Jury and as editor-in-chief of The Journal of Clinical Investigation and of Current Opinion in Hematology. Until his death he was a member of the scientific advisory board of The Forsyth Dental Institute and a trustee of the American Council on Science and Health.
Scientific contributions
Stossel's research included studies of white blood cell structure function in health and disease but predominantly focused on the molecular mechanism of how cells move and change shape. This research led to the discovery of two important cellular proteins, filamin and gelsolin, that regulate the assembly of actin. Gelsolin is also an abundant extracellular protein that circulates in blood plasma, and Stossel established that it is a component of innate immunity that promotes host antimicrobial activity and prevents the potentially lethal dissemination of inflammation. His company, BioAegis Therapeutics, is conducting clinical trials to assess the potential of plasma gelsolin therapy in a wide variety of infectious, inflammatory and degenerative diseases.
BioAegis Therapeutics
Tom Stossel was co-founder and chief scientific advisor to BioAegis, a clinical stage company focused on developing therapies for infectious, inflammatory and degenerative diseases through a portfolio built around plasma gelsolin technology and therapeutics. The company is commercializing recent scientific discoveries that harness the body's innate defense system to prevent serious outcomes. BioAegis exploits the multifunctional role of Plasma Gelsolin ("pGSN"), a highly conserved, endogenous human protein. pGSN is a master regulator—a key immune modulator that balances the inflammatory process to prevent the spread of excess inflammation while simultaneously enhancing antimicrobial defense. It is claimed to be a unique anti-inflammatory without immunosuppressive properties. In August 2019, BioAegis completed a Phase 1b/2a Community Acquired Pneumonia clinical trial. Based on pre-clinical efficacy evidence and the outcome of the clinical trial, BioAegis is now raising funding to launch a phase 2b trial in severe pneumonia designed to demonstrate definitively that plasma gelsolin repletion reduces morbidity and mortality.
Publications
Stossel was the author of almost 300 publications, including co-authoring two textbooks, Haematology: A Pathophysiological Approach (1984) and Blood: Principles and Practice of Hematology (1997) and the consumer book Pharmaphobia: How the Conflict of Interest Myth Undermines American Medical Innovation (2015).