Julian B. Marsh (1926 – 2018)

Julian B. Marsh, a pioneer in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism research and a past editor-in-chief of the Journal of Lipid Research, died Nov. 16 at the age of 92. He was a beloved mentor and colleague to many investigators in the lipid field, including the authors of this tribute.

Julian B. Marsh, pictured here in 1983, served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Lipid Research from 1983 to 1986.Photos courtesy of Michael C. Phillips

Julian B. Marsh, a pioneer in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism research and a past editor-in-chief of the Journal of Lipid Research, died Nov. 16 at the age of 92. He was a beloved mentor and colleague to many investigators in the lipid field, including the authors of this tribute.

Born in New York City in 1926, Julian attended the High School of Music and Art in Harlem. He moved to Philadelphia to study chemistry as an undergraduate and then medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; he earned his M.D. at the age of 21. After postdoctoral work in biochemistry in David Drabkin’s laboratory at Penn, he spent a year at the Walter Reed Army Research Institute.

Julian joined the faculty of the school of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 as an assistant professor of biochemistry. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1960 to study at the Medical Research Council Laboratory in London, where he investigated fatty acid metabolism with Anthony James. Back at Penn, he became a professor in 1963 and was chairman of the biochemistry department at the dental school from 1965 to 1975.

With Drabkin and other colleagues, Julian published a series of papers on the effects of nephrosis on lipoprotein metabolism, an interest he maintained for much of his career. Another longstanding interest was the biosynthesis of lipoproteins, and, in collaboration with Arthur Whereat, he used rat liver slices and perfusates to investigate this topic. A 1959 paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry reported the first measurement of the rate of synthesis of cholesterol in secreted lipoproteins. Julian also helped develop a simple charring method for rapid quantitation of lipids (for example, in column chromatography fractions); this work with David Weinstein was published in 1966 in the Journal of Lipid Research.

Julian moved to the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1975 to chair the department of physiology and biochemistry, a position he held until 1984. He and George Rothblat recruited faculty to form what became well known as the Philadelphia Lipid Group, which was supported for 35 years by grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and other institutes of the National Institutes of Health.

At the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Julian mentored three of the authors and promoted our interests in biomedical research in the lipoprotein field. Julian B. Marsh stands front and center in this group photo taken at the 1982 Lipoprotein Metabolism Gordon Research Conference in New Hampshire, which he chaired.

Julian also supervised M.D./Ph.D. candidate Joseph Bass on a nephrotic syndrome project that led to several publications on apoE and apoA-I in nephrosis. Bass is now a renowned molecular endocrinologist at Northwestern University.

In collaboration with Dennis Cryer, Paul Coates and Jean Cortner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn, Julian helped establish the methodology for studying human apolipoprotein metabolism using endogenous stable isotopic labeling, initially publishing this work in the JLR in 1986. Endogenous labeling with stable isotopes allows for the simultaneous kinetic analyses of multiple apolipoproteins and permits studies in children and women of child-bearing age. The methodology pioneered by Julian and his colleagues was adopted rapidly by many other investigators and has been used extensively to understand lipoprotein metabolism in humans.

Soon after Julian retired from the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1998, the Julian Marsh Faculty Scholar Award was created. Now an annual award at Drexel University College of Medicine (which includes the legacy of the Medical College of Pennsylvania), it has gone to 15 distinguished winners to date.

After he retired, Julian moved to Boston to be near his daughter and began a collaboration with the fourth author of this tribute.

Ernst J. Schaefer: Julian became a visiting scientist in the lipid metabolism laboratory at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. At weekly laboratory meetings and journal clubs, he never hesitated to provide his insights, to make presentations and to provide suggestions with regard to our lipoprotein metabolic studies. He greatly helped Alice Lichtenstein, Stefania Lamon-Fava and me in carrying out human apolipoprotein metabolic studies. His former research assistant Margaret Diffenderfer took over the responsibility for the technical aspects of these studies.

Colleagues marked Julian’s 80th birthday in 2006 when a symposium on high-density lipoprotein metabolism was held at Tufts University. During a special luncheon for his 90th birthday in 2016, many former colleagues called to congratulate him.

Julian was a man of character, warm and compassionate. His advice was invariably wise and often leavened by humorous puns. Always willing to help solve any problem, scientific or other, Julian was an oasis of calm and sage advice, focused on pragmatic problem-solving. After years of seeing a procession of people from graduate students to department chairs come to his office, Peg Diffenderfer commented he was truly a “Mr. Fix-it.”

His over 100 publications, many of which have become points of reference, reflect Julian’s scientific abilities. He was editor-in-chief of the JLR from 1983 to 1986 and served as chair of the Lipoprotein Metabolism Gordon Research Conference in 1982 and chair of the American Heart Association Arteriosclerosis Council from 1986 to 1988. His teaching was of the highest quality, and in 1977 he won the Lindback Award for excellence in teaching.

In addition to his scientific prowess, Julian possessed exceptional musical and athletic abilities. He played the viola for many years in the Philadelphia Doctors Orchestra and, later, in the Wellesley Symphony Orchestra. He played tennis at a very high level, such that at many Lipoprotein Gordon Research Conferences, much younger opponents were seen to be losing while doing all the running.

Julian was the true embodiment of a gentleman and a scholar. He leaves a legacy of groundbreaking scientific discovery in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism and a community of scholars around the world whom he trained, mentored and provided with collaborative advice. He is remembered with great admiration and grateful affection.

He was predeceased by his wife, Priscilla, and is survived by a daughter, Gail, and two grandchildren.

The authors thank Margaret Diffenderfer and Barbara Engle for valuable research for this article.