For Release: May 18, 2004
Contact: DMS Communications(603) 650-1492

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Dr. Judah Folkman, Renowned Surgeon and Medical Pioneer, to Speak at DMS Class Day

HANOVER, NH-Judah Folkman, MD, will deliver the keynote address, "Don't Practice on Me," at Dartmouth Medical School's Class Day ceremony on June 12. DMS Class Day honors the class of 2004 medical and graduate students and will be held at 9 a.m. on the front lawn of the medical school in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Folkman is recognized as the father of angiogenesis, now a field of medicine that investigates the formation of blood vessels. He is the Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery and a professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School. Formerly chief of surgery at Children's Hospital in Boston, he now serves as the vascular biology program director.

As a student at Harvard Medical School, Folkman was involved with the invention of the first implantable cardiac pacemaker. He received his MD in1957 and completed his surgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. While serving as a lieutenant in the US Navy at the National Naval Medical Center, he worked on silicone rubber implants and controlled release technology that led to the development of Norplant, a time-released contraceptive used around throughout the world.

Folkman also began experiments at the Naval Center that would prove his theory that tumors are dependent on new blood vessel growth and would go on to develop most of the methodology for the mechanism of angiogenesis, and its role in cancer treatment is now pursued worldwide. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

The student speakers for Class Day ceremony are medical student Gary R. Maslow and graduate student Margaret Ann Crane-Godreau class of 2004. In case of rain, Class Day will be at 11:30 a.m. in the Berry Sports Center, Leede Arena. For more information, go to: http://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/students/class_day.