Researcher who discovered AZT retires on last day of grant

Jerome P. Horwitz, Ph.D., WSU professor of internal medicine, retires Friday after spending more than a half-century developing drugs to battle cancer and AIDS. Throughout his career -- up until the last day even -- Dr. Horwitz's work was funded through several sources, including the National Cancer Institute.

Although the focus of Dr. Horwitz's career has been the development of anti-cancer drugs, he is perhaps best known for developing AZT and two other AIDS drugs. When Dr. Horwitz discovered AZT in the early 1960s, the drugs were a failure in inhibiting the spread of cancer cells. Having no purpose at the time, AZT was shelved, without patents, until 20 years later when the Burroughs Wellcome Co. began testing chemicals that might be effective against retroviruses. It was the first effective drug in the fight against AIDS.

Dr. Horwitz received both his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Detroit. He completed his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Michigan before training at Northwestern University and U-M. In 1956, he joined the Detroit Institute of Cancer Research as a research associate and was named the director of the division of chemistry in 1965. Two years later, he joined the WSU faculty. He served as scientific director of the Michigan Cancer Foundation from 1970 to 1973, when he was named chairman of the MCF Department of Chemistry. He served as chair until being named member emeritus in 1991.

Dr. Horwitz has been honored with numerous awards, including the School of Medicine's Distinguished Service Award and the University of Michigan's Outstanding Achievement Award. In 1986, he was listed as one of the "25 Most Intriguing People" by People magazine, and in 2000, The Detroit News named him Michiganian of the Year.