Remembering Avrum Gotlieb, M.D.

NAVBO marks the recent passing of Dr. Avrum Gotlieb, founding Chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP) at the University of Toronto and a major figure in cardiovascular research and pathology. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Avrum graduated from McGill University Medical School in 1971. He finished his training as a pathologist in the 1970s and advanced his scientific training through post graduate work at the University of California, San Diego. He returned to Canada to take up his career in medicine, research, teaching, and 

administration, serving 45+ years prior to his retirement in 2025.

Alongside his academic duties, Avrum held leadership roles in several professional organizations, including serving as President of the Canadian Society of Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology, and the American Society for Investigative Pathology. Long-time NAVBO members will remember Avrum’s steady and scholarly presence at the 2004 IVBM in Toronto. Avrum’s LMP colleague and former NAVBO President Michelle Bendeck recalls: “Avrum had a life-long passion for pathology research. Though he retired officially in July [2025], I’m not sure what retirement meant to Avrum, as he continued to serve on graduate student advisory committees, and was in attendance at departmental faculty meetings through the fall. My favourite/not so favourite memory of Avrum includes the detailed and extensive planning process we engaged in, preparing to host the International Vascular Biology Meeting in Toronto in 2004. Four of us met weekly for almost 2 years! The meeting was a great success, and I think it was the first time that the IVBM and NAVBO made a profit.” 

Another LMP colleague, Myron Cybulsky, notes: “The anecdote that Michelle provided about IVBM highlights one of Avrum’s exceptional abilities – that of an organizer.  Indeed, Avrum, Michelle, the late Lowell Langille and I met weekly over 2 years.  Avrum ensured that we included key members of different vascular biology societies and addressed gender balance. Since we were in the post-SARS era, which affected Toronto in 2003, there was a risk that international travel to a meeting could be impacted resulting in a significant financial obligation to the venue.  Avrum took on this risk like a mensch.

“I first interacted with Avrum as a medical student who studied mechanisms of acute inflammation in the lab of Henry Movat.  At the time, Avrum was a junior PI in a lab on the 6th floor of the Medical Sciences Building at U of T.  I decided to present a poster at a FASEB meeting in the US, but since no one else from my lab was traveling Avrum let me share a room with him and one of his graduate students.  He continued to be supportive after I entered into the anatomic pathology residency program because he realized the importance of training clinician-scientists.  Avrum kept in touch with me after I joined Michael Gimbrone’s group first as a postdoctoral fellow and subsequently a Junior PI.  He was instrumental in my recruitment back to Toronto in 1996 when he served as interim Department Chair.  He remained a key mentor while serving two terms as Department Chair and subsequently.  In the 1990s and early 2000’s I was part of the vascular research group and had an adjoining lab and office to Avrum and Lowell at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute.

“Avrum stood out as a phenomenal leader, educator and mentor.  He was fair and maintained high educational standards.  Although Avrum was not an athlete and did not participate in summer softball games, I was amused one day when I noticed that he kept a baseball bat in his office.  When I asked him why he had a baseball bat in his office, Avrum gave one of those wistful smiles that he was famous for and skillfully shifted the conversation to another subject.”

NAVBO sends sincere condolences to Avrum’s wife of over 57 years, Linda. May his memory be a blessing.