Dean's Newsletter

Andrei Yakovlev, MD, PhD
1944-2008

March 07, 2008

Dr. Andrei Yakovlev died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack on February 27, 2008. Those of us in the medical center who came to know Andrei are heartbroken. How profoundly sad. And, as Mark Noble expressed in his eulogy, the sadness grows by the day.

This newsletter is a memorial to honor the life of Dr. Yakovlev. I first met Andrei in 2002. I was a new Dean and we were recruiting a new Chair of Biostatistics. There was a twist, however: in recognition of the direction of the field, we expanded the scope of the department to include both biostatistics and computational biology. Because of Andrei’s doctoral-level training in medicine, biology, and mathematics, and because of his intellectual breadth and flexibility, he was uniquely qualified to lead this newly restructured department. There was clearly much more to Andrei, however, on a personal level. He had a refreshing directness, which was combined with genuine warmth and sincerity. He cared. He cared intensely about his family, his science and his colleagues. At the Department’s 5th anniversary reception, attended by the entire department and many others, the warm feelings for this great leader were palpable. At age 63, Andrei was still on the ascending limb of his life as a department chair, and as a husband and father. Our hearts go out to Andrei’s wife Nina, their 11-year-old son Yuri, and their family in Russia.

Robert Bambara, PhD, Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics

The manner of Andrei's death was a particularly pointed reminder to me of how close we all can be to the end. In 1997 I suffered a near fatal heart attack, which I survived only by luckily being 5 minutes from the Strong Emergency room, where some very talented people saved my life. The 911 response team needed a longer time to get to Andrei's home on a snowy night. Of course, when all is said, it’s what you do with the time you have. Andrei always had the time to talk about biomathematics. Sometimes we had discussions about his view that most published microarray results were useless because they were statistically insignificant. Most of the time, we talked about developing computational biology at the university. The activities in our department do not involve much statistical analysis, and so would not be of interest to most people holding the Biostatistics Department Chair. However, Andrei liked the rigorous computational work that Dr. Dave Mathews does in our Department. He supported our ideas that the Strategic Plan should include an expansion of hiring in Computational Biology. The idea was to hire computational biology faculty in several departments to complement wet bench faculty. This would not benefit his department, but would be very healthy for the School. Andrei's support helped us to hire Alan Grossfield, an expert in molecular dynamics. This generous view is typical of his way of thinking, and is part of what made him a great man.

W. Jackson Hall, PhD, Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

Andrei was an extraordinary fellow ─ a scholar par excellence, with creative energy the likes of which I've never seen. He straddled areas of medical science and mathematics/probability/ statistics, and was a great innovator in both camps. There are, no doubt, many medical scientists who effectively use and adapt mathematical works in their research, as there are many mathematical types who develop significant mathematical research in response to some biological science problem brought to their attention. But Andrei was a master and great innovator in both camps!

Speaking of energy: He spent 24 of the past 30 years as a department chair, in four separate locations!

I'm not one of Andrei's many collaborators, but, as a senior colleague and one with special appreciation for the mathematical foundations of our subject, Andrei often used me as a sounding board. He'd come to my office and chat, often excitedly, about new research; or he'd come with aggravation after receiving some outlandish referee report or grant review he'd occasionally receive. (As an innovative “straddler,” often upsetting conventional wisdom, he was at high risk for outlandish reviews!) I will very much miss his gentle knock on my door, and the anticipation it would bring for a stimulating interlude....

Andrei was a very upbeat person − good natured, very respectful of everyone's role, and very good at collaboration, though he appeared to be the clear leader. Besides department and medical center colleagues, he brought a stream of distinguished visitors to work with him, including three fine probabilists, Lev Klebanov from the Czech Republic, Nick Yanev from Bulgaria, and Leonid Hanin, now in Idaho, whose strengths he recruited for joint biomathematical research and whose careers were undoubtedly enriched thereby.

I'll just mention two major breakthroughs of his, in statistical analysis of gene expression data, both jointly with Lev Klebanov (and others). Andrei has been a consistent critic of many methods offered by statisticians for the analysis of such data, all of which pay little or no attention to the high levels of dependence observed among genes. He developed an ingenious method, based on differences between gene pairs in an appropriate ordering of genes that yields derived measurements that are nearly independent and hence amenable to many standard statistical procedures. In another, not yet published, he recognizes that gene expression data are invariably aggregated over a random and unknown number of cells, and ignoring this ─ which has virtually always been done ─ can lead to very inappropriate conclusions. He was just beginning to develop ways to offset this difficulty, written up in a draft paper that he shared with a number of us by e-mail the evening before his death. Both of these innovations will, no doubt, have lasting impact on statistical methods in this area, and hence on biological inferences there from.

Andrei had great appreciation for music, for history, for art, for food, for wine, for conversation. He will sorely be missed, both in and out of the University.

Ollivier Hyrien, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

When Andrei hired me in Utah, I was excited and impressed with the prospect of working with a scientist of such a breadth and accomplishments, yet I knew nothing about how wonderful and dedicated a mentor he would be. During all the years I worked with him he gave me unlimited trust and care. In return, the highest intellectual rigor, creativity and honesty were among his expectations, but these would go without saying. For all that he did, he will not be forgotten. Thank you, Andrei.

K. Hartmut (Hucky) Land, PhD, Professor and Chair of Biomedical Genetics

Thank you. Andrei,
For your passion
for science and life, your brilliance,
your voice booming down the hall
and all the long hours of discussion.
You opened new vistas,
forged new paths
that were a great privilege to share,
yet for too short a fraction of time.
We'll miss you always.

With love and admiration.

Michael P. McDermott, PhD, Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

Many others have, and will, comment about Andrei's superb academic career, his incredible breadth and depth of knowledge, his creativity, the way that he continually challenged convention in the pursuit of scientific truth, and his ability to foster interdisciplinary cooperation to address important biomedical problems. Andrei’s outstanding leadership over the past 5 years, however, deserves special mention. Andrei was brought to Rochester in 2002 to build and lead the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology. There was a good nucleus of tenure-track faculty at the time, but the department was quite small and substantially understaffed given its broad mission. When Andrei first came, he did not jump right in and alter the course and structure of the department; instead, he deliberately sought advice from his colleagues, listened carefully, astutely identified the areas of most critical need, and successfully recruited outstanding people to fill these needs. Thanks to Andrei's careful and targeted expansion and the strong support of Medical Center leadership, the University of Rochester now has a truly world-class Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology.

Another important aspect of Andrei's leadership is the way that he related to the faculty, staff, and students of the department. Andrei was firm when he had to be, but he always tried to be very encouraging and helpful. He had an uncanny power of persuasion (as most successful Chairmen do) and was able to motivate people to attain seemingly unattainable goals. He took special care of junior faculty, providing them funding when needed, helping them develop research ideas, and tirelessly and selflessly helping them with grant submissions. This effort is now beginning to bear fruit, with several faculty receiving, or about to receive, their first NIH grant awards. Andrei was truly an extraordinary mentor.

It has been said (correctly) that Andrei was a man with strong opinions on virtually every subject, and he was never shy about expressing these opinions. To those who knew him, however, he was actually a very gentle man who genuinely cared very deeply about the people with whom he interacted. It has been remarkable witnessing the selfless cooperation among the members of the department over the past few days since Andrei's passing, and this is a testament to what Andrei created and nurtured during his all-too-brief time here. We will all miss him dearly.

Govind S. Mudholkar, PhD, Professor of Statistics (RC) and Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

Andrei Yakovlev was ideally suited to organize and lead the biomedical research and consulting activities at the University of Rochester. Indeed in my statistical and biostatical work over the last forty-five years here, I can think of no one better equipped for the task. His training in the basic medicine and the doctoral research in biology helped him in recognizing the realities of the needs of medical investigators, whereas his doctoral work in Mathematics in the demanding Russian system enabled him in rigorous formulation of the problems. The latter experience was also instrumental in his numerous research contributions to the mathematical biosciences and in improvisation of appropriate statistical methods in collaborative medical research. His career research contributions and the administrative accomplishments are easy to describe and enumerate. However, his remarkable and unusual personality, characterized by a combination of people-sense and a nurturing personality towards his post-doctoral fellows and research associates, noted during some of my recent editorial work, were major factors in his administrative and academic success. He was always jovial, friendly and outgoing in social settings but serious, questioning and forthright in academic forums. In summary, the unusually gifted Andrei Yakovlev's sudden premature demise is an enormous loss to his colleagues and to the University. He is irreplaceable.

Mark D. Noble, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Genetics

It was more than ten years ago that Andrei started his efforts with Margot Mayer-Proschel, Chris Proschel and myself. As a next stage in a career marked by exceptional brilliance, Andrei agreed to come and establish the Biostatistics Division of the newly formed Huntsman Cancer Institute. We began working together very soon after his arrival, leading to a series of studies that represent some of the most advanced quantitative analyses of differentiation of stem cells – work that for us was an entirely new way of thinking about stem cell function but for Andrei was just one more step in a problem that he had begun to define long before he met us. When Margot Mayer-Pröschel, Chris Pröschel and I later joined the University of Rochester, and the opportunity arose to identify a new leader for our Biostatistics and Computational Biology efforts, Andrei was an obvious choice. Happily, this view was shared by other members of the faculty, and by medical school administration. We were fortunate indeed that we were able to bring Andrei here, a move that brought great benefit to many of us in this medical and research community.

For us, working with Andrei was one of the great joys of our scientific lives. There is nothing like arguing with a brilliant Russian mathematician – on any topic – to force you to think clearly, and Andrei changed the way we thought about stem cell biology in profound ways. For brilliant is a word that fit him the way that colorful describes an alpine meadow when the spring flowers are in bloom. He constantly was coming forth with new ideas about ways to solve problems that others had long dismissed as too difficult to even contemplate. His commitment to teaching his biological colleagues how to think quantitatively had no limits, save his untimely death. The projects he was working on at his death had the brilliance and passion of youth combined with the wisdom of experience. The challenge of bringing these projects to fruition may be met as a result of his dedication to sharing his ideas with his colleagues, and demanding the highest levels of scientific rigor from all around him. But the loss of the next vision, the pleasure of Andrei walking into our offices with yet another idea that had become apparent to him long before it was identified by others – these are losses that loom as a void deeply painful to contemplate. For it was always clear that for Andrei, each day ahead was filled with the opportunity for remarkable new discoveries to be made.

Andrei was a true artist of biostatistics and mathematics, with all the attendant passion of an artist working to find truth in a complex universe. And in other aspects of life too, be it music, international politics, the struggles in challenging entrenched views, or any topic that arose – here too, Andrei’s passions and insights were a delight. Some discussions were exhausting, it is true – but they were exhausting in the sense of a demanding celebration of the intellect. In this celebration, Andrei was so often the life of the party. But he was also so much more. His was a tale told by a visionary able to see great distances down the road of knowledge, full of insights and illumination, signifying much. And paradoxically, with all of his attempts to teach the rest of us the deep meaning of probability, he himself was a singularity – and the likelihood of encountering his like again lies far beyond any reasonable vanishing point on life’s horizon. While the treasure of having known him cannot outweigh the pain of not seeing him again, the treasure of interactions with this very unlikely individual still does sparkle.

Derick R. Peterson, PhD, Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

Andrei was a great man --on many levels. His passion for scientific truth was unsurpassed, yet it was matched by his passion and love for his friends, colleagues, and family. All of this lives on in those of us that were so fortunate to feel his charismatic presence in our lives. Although we will greatly miss his wit, his humor, and his insight, we will cherish the fond memories we have and marvel at the indelible mark he made on this world.

Christoph Proschel, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Genetics

Memories there are many, but one thought keeps haunting me: No matter how busy things were, Andrei always took the time and effort to explain to a non-mathematician (and junior scientist, to boot) like myself why we needed to re-evaluate our basic assumptions about gene expression analysis. He would be passionate and relentless and the concerns he raised would often involve dire predictions for some of our biological approaches. But despite his criticisms, he was always supportive, always an ally trying to find a solution. Just the other day, after one such exhausting discussion, I commented to Margot what a privilege it is to have such direct and open access to a brilliant mind like Andrei. His hand-writing is still on the black-board outside my office, and my comment now seems almost surreal - highlighting a palpable void.

David Oakes, PhD, Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

A few memories of Andrei:

The personal warmth of his greeting to me at our first meeting, and which he always maintained.

A favorite remark “I am not the king,” used at faculty meetings to deflect the requests for the impossible that are received by a Chair.

His insistence on a particular vintage of red wine at all departmental dinners and his disappointment with any restaurant that was unable to provide it.

His dislike of bureaucracy, especially that of government agencies, often likened to that he had experienced as a department head in the Soviet Union.

His love of America and pride in his US citizenship.

The depth and breadth of his collaborations, his towering intellect, and the energy and persistence he used to overcome obstacles to research and to publication

Xing Qiu, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

"... We fought like lions." -- Andrei on fighting misconceptions in research.

If you ever had a chance to talk to Andrei, you would notice that he was a man with strong mind and stunning straightforwardness. In his research field, he was a courageous lion fighting against conventional wisdom.

To us who worked with him, he was also the leading lion who loved and cared for everyone in his pride. Whenever I had trouble in my life, I knew he was there to talk to and to help. To many, Andrei will be remembered as a venerable chair of a thriving department, a renowned leading researcher in multiple fields. Yet the first thing about Andrei in my mind, is that he was a kind, amiable friend with whom I can share my happiness and sadness.

Sarah (Sally) W. Thurston, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

Andrei, I appreciated not only your scientific leadership and ideas, but also your kind, encouraging and humble nature. You chaired our department with fairness. You kept us apprised of possible opportunities for new funding and collaborations. As the department doubled and tripled under your leadership, you strove to keep the department unified and supportive. To help save money you turned off unnecessary lights in the hallways, yet with your passing we have lost a great light. You will be greatly missed.

Xin Ming Tu, PhD, Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

Andrei was not only a first-rate researcher and scholar, but also a caring person who seized every opportunity to establish and maintain a positive working environment for everyone in the Dept. For example, he took a personal interest in the design of the floor plan for the Dept. in the new CTSB building. At a recent planning meeting attended by the designers and Biostat leadership, after the designers proposed an open-space floor plan for the Dept., Andrei insisted that the design be modified to accommodate as many private offices for the faculty and staff as possible. As another example, some of our faculty members have had spouses who were doctoral students in biostatistics. To help retain these talented faculty members, Andrei was able to create positions that furthered the goals of the department and the University and matched the strengths and research interests of these spouses even before they approached him about job opportunities in the Dept. Prior to coming to UR, I held positions in the Department of Statistics at the University of Pittsburgh and the Department of Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. I have never seen a chair who cared so much about the people in his/her department at such a personal and professional level.

Stephen L. Welle, PhD, Professor of Medicine

I did not know Andrei well on a personal level. What you learn about a man after he dies sometimes makes you wish you had known him better in life. I had a number of meetings with Andrei about microarray data analysis – he was passionate about this subject. He disagreed totally with mainstream approaches to this problem, while I saw merit in some of these approaches. Every time I headed off to his office I thought maybe this time I would be able to convince him to relent a little bit and give his blessing to a few of the methods I was using. Every time I left his office I had moved more toward his point of view. Andrei had a great gift of telling you with no hesitation that you are wrong without insulting you or making it a personal issue. The data and the truth were foremost for him, and he always backed up his point of view with facts. We need more scientists like Andrei. I learned a lot from him and will miss working with him.

Hulin Wu, PhD, Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology

It is still hard for me to believe that Andrei is gone, since he recently emailed me with some advice on a center grant I am working on; his email is still sitting in my mailbox. Andrei was always very supportive of our research and provided useful advice and critical ideas to tackle complicated problems. He often challenged our thinking from different angles which stimulated new ideas. As our Department Chair, he provided full resources, strong support, and most importantly, freedom for our faculty to develop our own research programs. Since I was hired by Andrei in 2003, my small research group has grown from 5 people to a new Division with about 20 people under Andrei’s leadership and support. Andrei’s passing is a great loss for our Department and for our colleagues and friends. I still can remember his speech concluding with “Long Live the Biostatistics Department” at our Department Winter Party two weeks ago. Andrei’s memory will live in our hearts and we will work hard to carry his mission forward to build a stronger and better Department.

Martin S. Zand, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine

Andrei was a brilliant and visionary statistical scientist. I will dearly miss the sound of Andrei's voice "But this is not necessarily the case....", and even the long explanations that inevitably followed. But what I cherish from my time with Andrei was his tremendous care for the humanity and aesthetics of life, and his reverence for the beauty of nature. He loved that mathematics could reveal that beauty, just as the art he collected, the music he played at home, and great literature did as well. As a scholar, Andrei taught us all to nurture the beauty and potential for excellence in the faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and students he mentored. He was a spectacular chairman and leader, and left a human scholarly legacy that will carry on his high standards, his critical eye, and his love of mathematics and true science. Andrei was a magnificent, inspiring and caring man, and we will miss him greatly.

In celebration of a life well-lived and ended much too soon,

David S. Guzick, MD, PhD
Dean, School of Medicine and Dentistry
University of Rochester