Chemistry professor emeritus Orrie Friedman dies at age 94

Jun. 29, 2009

Orrie Friedman

Biotech industry pioneer Orrie Friedman, a Brandeis professor of chemistry emeritus whose relentless intellectual curiosity drove him to seek answers to the riddle of Alzheimer’s disease well into his 90s, died on Sunday, June 28 at his Brookline home. He was 94.

Friedman’s association with Brandeis began in 1953, when he left a faculty position at Harvard Medical School to teach biochemistry in Brandeis’s new graduate chemistry program.

Eight years later, he resigned from the Brandeis faculty to start the world’s first biotechnology company, Collaborative Research Inc., which pioneered the study of the relationship between genes and disease. In 1987, the journal Cell dedicated its front cover to a Collaborative Research breakthrough -- the genetic linkage map of the human genome. Company scientists also discovered the location of the cystic fibrosis gene on chromosome seven.

In 1992, Friedman retired from the company, which had been sold to Becton, Dickinson and Co. and renamed Genome Therapeutics.

Friedman returned to Brandeis in 1999 as a senior visiting scientist. At Brandeis, he founded GrenPharma, a biotech company dedicated to preventing the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The company’s laboratory was located in the Kalman building.

In 2005, Friedman made a $3.5 million gift to Brandeis to establish the Orrie M. Friedman Distinguished Chair in Chemistry, which is held by professor Li Deng. It is believed to be the largest gift ever made by a faculty member to the University.

“Orrie Friedman dedicated his life to advancing scientific understanding for the betterment of mankind and pioneered the study of the relationship between genes and disease,” said Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz, PhD ’72. “The world of science has lost a giant and Brandeis has lost a valued member of the University community.”

Friedman was born June 6, 1915, in Grenfell, Saskatchewan, a “tiny speck on the vast plains of western Canada,” he told the Boston Globe in a story published in 2007. His family later moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where his father was in the bootleg liquor business.

Despite being a self-described “crappy student,” Friedman attended the University of Manitoba, and supported himself by playing poker after graduating in 1935.

He eventually traveled to Montreal after hopping aboard a cattle train, and reunited with a friend from Winnipeg, Leo Brickman, who was studying chemistry at McGill University. During his visits with Brickman, Friedman developed his first sparks of intellectual curiosity and enrolled at McGill with the hope of becoming a chemist.

The academically rigorous McGill was difficult at first, but Friedman persevered and was accepted to university’s graduate school. For his doctorate, he studied RDX, a secret explosive that was being developed for use in World War II. He later went to Harvard Medical School, where he helped in the development of Cytoxan, a cancer drug.

Friedman was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and belonged to the American Chemical Society and the American Association for Cancer Research. He authored numerous scholarly articles and was the recipient of many research grants.

Friedman and his wife of 50 years, Laurel, were both Fellows of Brandeis. Orrie was a member of Brandeis’s Science Advisory Council. Laurel is a member of the Brandeis National Committee.

In addition to his generous support of Brandeis, his philanthropic endeavors included the American Society for Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Temple Israel of Boston.

Along with his wife, Friedman is survived by three sons, David, Hugh, and Mark; and twin granddaughters, Lucy and Hannah. His daughter, Trudy, died in 1997.

Services are scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday, July 2, at Temple Israel in Boston.