In Memoriam: Premier Young Leader in Vascular Biology and Tissue Engineering, Jeffrey S. Schechner, M.D.

Jeffrey S. Schechner, M.D., associate professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine, who was instrumental in advancing research on blood vessels in the skin and human skin grafting, died on September 7 in New Haven at age 39.

Schechner, who also served as Director of the Dermatology Service at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital, played a key role in the development of an improved tissue engineered skin that, by incorporating human endothelial cells, would enhance currently available options. He and colleagues developed a new technique for producing artificial skin that is likely to improve the reliability of overall skin graft performance, especially in recipients with impaired blood vessel development such as diabetics and the elderly. He discovered how to successfully transplant human endothelial cells in inflammatory diseases to generated microvessel formation in a recipient. He found that human skin can be developed with blood vessels derived from cultured endothelial cells. The key finding was the unexpected effect of the anti-apoptotic protein Bc1-2 on endothelial cell behavior.

Schechner and his collaborators within Yale’s Vascular Biology and Transplantation Program proceeded to develop this discovery as a tool for improved tissue engineering and for reperfusion of ischemic tissues.At the time of his death, he was designing a clinical trial to bring this work to fruition.

“Although we have all been robbed of the many more years of friendship and partnership with Jeff that we had expected, all that we are and can become has been immeasurably enriched by his priceless contributions to our programs and environment,” said Richard Edelson, M.D., chair of dermatology at Yale and Director of the Yale Cancer Center in a letter to faculty and staff. “Along with his numerous friends throughout the Medical Center, we in the Department of Dermatology are stunned by his loss. His wife Christina’s and children Evan and Phoebe’s loss dwarfs our own.”

As a medical student at Yale, Schechner developed an interest in vascular biology while doing his thesis research in the laboratory of Professor Irwin Braverman, M.D. Following his medical internship at Boston University Medical Center, he completed his residency in dermatology at Yale. Then, with support from the Yale Dermatology Post-Doctoral Training Grant, he began, along with his mentor Jordan Pober, to define new and important directions in human vascular biology. As a dermatology resident in 1991-1992, along with Braverman, he applied laser-Doppler measurements to mapping the skin microvasculature in humans. In 1993, with Pober he studied functional roles of skin endothelial cells in inflammatory diseases and in cutaneous malignancies.

Schechner is survived by his wife, Christina Herrick, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of dermatology at Yale; son, Evan, age four, daughter, Phoebe, age one; parents, David and Shifra Schechner of Brookline, MA; and sister Miriam Schechner of Queens, New York.

Memorial contributions in Schechner’s name can be made to the Dermatology Foundation, 1560 Sherman Parkway, Evanston, IL 60201-4808.