Jane H. Morse, M.D., a highly regarded member of the Pulmonary Circulation community, died on New Year's Day at her home in the Bronx. Dr. Morse who was active as physician-scientist for more than 45 years, succumbed to pancreatic cancer.
A 1951 graduate of Smith College, Dr. Morse earned her M.D. degree from College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University (P&S) in 1955. After a residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, New York, she completed research fellowships at the VA Medical Center in the Bronx and Rockefeller University before beginning her lifelong career at P&S. Officially retired since 1996, when she was named professor emeritus of clinical medicine at the P&S faculty, she worked throughout her retirement on collaborative research projects exploring the genetic basis for various forms of pulmonary arterial hypertension in pediatric and adult patients.
Dr. Morse was a creative and dedicated scientist, respected nationally and internationally for her work in pulmonary hypertension. She was in official retirement when she made her career-defining discovery of the gene that causes familial primary pulmonary hypertension. She had begun studying the families several years before retirement. Through a multidisciplinary translational approach, her team discovered in 2000 that more than 50 percent of patients with primary pulmonary hypertension possess mutations in the BMPR2 gene. In recent years she continued these collaborative efforts to extend her findings by defining additional candidate genes in patients lacking the BMPR2 mutation. She also first reported the genetic abnormalities in patients who developed pulmonary hypertension associated with fenfluramine, the diet pill. Until her recent illness, Dr. Morse worked tirelessly five days a week, and her long days included lab meetings and consultations regarding the more than 100 families she and colleagues studied over the years. Featured in an article about faculty members who prefer work over more traditional retirement activities, she told an interviewer that she needed to work five days a week, not four, because "medical research is a highly competitive field. This is not dabbling. In medical research, it can’t be dabbling."
Her achievements are even more notable because she crossed fields into the pulmonary circulation and its genetic makeup in a second career. The excitement, initiative, and fearlessness that she showed in pursuing this new field were an inspiration to her colleagues. Though she had long enjoyed tennis and recently took up golf, she said it was not enough for her intellectually. "The reason I'm here is for the intellectual stimulation."
Earlier in her career Dr. Morse developed anti-insulin antibodies and examined the relationship between antinuclear antibodies and complement in lupus erythematosus. She conducted many fundamental immunochemical studies and, in collaboration with her husband, Dr. Stephen I. Morse, isolated the lymphocytosis-promoting factor from Bordetella pertussis and published the first electron micrographs of its pili.
She was a past president of the New York Rheumatism Association, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Master of the American College of Rheumatology. In 2007, the P&S Center for Women's Health and the Office of Gender Equity honored Dr. Morse for her lifelong commitment to education and training of medical students, residents, and fellows.
Dr. Morse is survived by two children and three grandchildren. A memorial service will be planned for late February or early March. Memorial contributions may be made in her name to the P&S Alumni Association.
