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November 6, 2008

Obituary: Mitchell B. Max

Anesthesiology professor Mitchell B. Max, director of the molecular epidemiology of pain program (MEPP) in Pitt’s Center for Pain Research, died Oct. 22, 2008. He was 59.

Max, a neurologist whose research interests included the mechanisms and treatment of neuropathic pain and the genetics of chronic pain, came to Pitt in 2007 to lead the anesthesiology department’s new MEPP. Following his appointment at Pitt, Max kept residences in Pittsburgh and in suburban Washington, D.C.

Max spent more than 20 years as a physician-researcher with the National Institutes of Health before coming to Pitt. He was chief of the clinical pain research section at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) and medical director of the Pain Research Clinic in the pain and neurosensory mechanisms branch of NIDCR. He also was a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Max was a fellow of the American Neurological Association and received the NIH Director’s Award, the U.S. Public Health Service Citation Award and the American Pain Society Fordyce Medal.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Max’s death a suicide, which has stunned his colleagues. Gerald F. Gebhart, director of the Center for Pain Research, said, “It was a total shock and surprise to everybody” in light of Max’s gregarious, outgoing and upbeat personality. “It’s a huge loss to the field, to the institution and to the people who worked with him.” Likewise, Doris K. Cope, UPMC vice chair of pain medicine, recalled Max as a devoted father and family man as well as an energetic colleague brimming with enthusiasm for his research and ideas for clinical and research projects. “He never stopped. His passion was pain research,” she said, recalling how he accompanied a group of pain researchers to Washington, D.C., to ask members of Congress for increased NIH funding for pain research.

Gebhart said he had known Max as a colleague through professional organizations for more than two decades before helping recruit him to Pitt. Max’s reputation as an expert in the genetics that impact pain and as a leader in the small but important niche of clinical trials in pain research afforded him multiple options when he decided to leave NIH. To bring him to Pitt was a coup, Gebhart said.

Gebhart said Max’s research in collaboration with colleagues at other institutions identified genetic differences that impact individuals’ sensitivity to pain and their response to various analgesics, discoveries useful in developing individualized pain management.

In addition to his work, Gebhart said, Max was an accomplished jazz keyboardist and a Jewish scholar. “He was a talented, bright guy,” Gebhart said.

Anesthesiology department chair John Williams remembered Max as “unquestionably one of the brightest people that I have ever had the good fortune to be associated with.” 

Williams said, “His leadership and knowledge in the field of clinical pain generally and the genomic basis for pain in specific were unmatched anywhere in the world. With his assistance we were building a unique program that was unrivaled anywhere in the world. We will sorely miss his input and guidance in this regard but we will continue to build the program that we had envisioned together as this is the most lasting testimonial and memorial that I am sure he would want.”

Max is survived by his wife, Lisa; daughters Rachel and Laura; his mother, Charlotte Max, and a sister, Lily Siegel.

Funeral services were held Oct. 26 in Bethesda, Md. Memorial contributions may be made to the Laura and Rachel Max College Fund, PO Box 394, Garrett Park, MD 20896.

A campus memorial is being planned but the date has not been set.

—Kimberly K. Barlow

Filed under: Feature,Volume 41 Issue 6

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