Thomas P. Stossel


Thomas P. Stossel was an American hematologist, inventor, medical researcher, and writer, who discovered gelsolin and invented the BioAegis technology estate. He was also a professor emeritus of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a 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 the potential to address a wide range of infectious, inflammatory, and degenerative diseases.

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, head of experimental medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and co-director of hematology and translational medicine at that institution. He served on the scientific advisory boards of Biogen, Inc., Dyax, Inc., 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 served 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 and 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 plasma 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 plasma gelsolin technology and therapeutics. The company commercializes scientific discoveries that harness the body's innate defense system by exploiting the multifunctional role of plasma gelsolin, 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. In August 2019, BioAegis completed a Phase 1b/2a community-acquired pneumonia clinical trial. In 2023, BioAegis received a $20 million contract from Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority's Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures to advance gelsolin for the treatment of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

Publications

Stossel was the author of almost 300 publications, including co-authoring two textbooks, Haematology: A Pathophysiological Approach and Blood: Principles and Practice of Hematology, and the consumer book Pharmaphobia: How the Conflict of Interest Myth Undermines American Medical Innovation.

Policy work

Stossel wrote extensively on policy issues related to medical research and on the relationships between academic researchers, physicians, and the medical products industry. His articles and op-eds have appeared in many publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. His book, Pharmaphobia: How the Conflict of Interest Myth Undermines American Medical Innovation, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2015. He was a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute and a visiting scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. Stossel has been supportive of industry ethics since 1987, when he joined the scientific advisory board of Biogen. He was also critical of the Affordable Care Act rule known as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which requires all companies that sell medical products to the government to disclose on a public website anything they give to physicians that is valued above $10.

Awards

Charity work

Stossel was a co-founder of Options for Children in Zambia, which provides dental and medical preventive care and other services to the country's major teaching hospital, an orphanage, and remote rural villages. He also established Lusaka Zambia, a sickle cell disease clinical and research center, in collaboration with physicians at the University Teaching Hospital, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia.

Personal life

Stossel had three children: Scott Stossel, national editor of The Atlantic; Sage Stossel, cartoonist and author of On the Loose in Boston, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York; and Tamara Sakala-Stossel, a graduate student at Northeastern University. With his wife, Kerry Maguire, DDS, MSPH, and others, Stossel co-founded a 501 charity, Options for Children in Zambia, that provides voluntary dental and medical care in the country. Stossel's younger brother, John Stossel, is an ex-television personality who shared libertarian ideas on Fox News and other major news channels. He now runs his own Youtube channel.