Juan Rosai

Juan Rosai, M.D.
Born	August 1940 Poppi, Italy
Residence	Milan, Italy
Nationality	Italian, American
Fields	Medicine & Pathology
Alma mater	University of Buenos Aires, Argentina & Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri
Known for	Research in Surgical pathology
Influences	Eduardo Lascano and Lauren Ackerman

Juan Rosai, M.D. (born August, 1940) is an Italian-born American physician who has contributed to clinical research in the subspecialty of surgical pathology. He is the principal author and editor of a major textbook in that field, and he has characterized novel medical conditions such as Rosai-Dorfman disease and the desmoplastic small round cell tumor. Rosai is also well-known because of his role as mentor and teacher to many American and international surgical pathologists.

Early life & education

Juan Rosai was born in Poppi, a little town near Florence, province of Arezzo, in the region of Tuscany, Italy.^[1] When he was eight years old, his parents emigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina because of the economic problems in Italy after World War II.^[2] At the age of 15 Rosai enrolled in the School of Medicine at the University of Buenos Aires.^[2] During his third year of medical school, he met Professor Eduardo Lascano, a pathologist who influenced young Rosai's interest in that discipline. Dr. Rosai earned the M.D. degree at the age of 21, and then he did the residency training in Anatomic Pathology at the same university, under the direction of Dr. Lascano. While serving subsequently as a house officer in pathology at the Regional Hospital of Mar del Plata, Rosai was introduced to Dr. Lauren Ackerman at a medical conference in Argentina.^[2] Ackerman invited Rosai to train with him in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States.

Career in the United States

After accepting the offer to pursue additional studies in the U.S., Dr. Rosai completed his residency and fellowship in anatomic pathology at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes Hospital under Ackerman's tutelage.^[2][3] Subsequently, Rosai remained on the faculty of Washington University until 1974, when he was appointed Professor & Director of Anatomic Pathology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He left there in 1985 for an identical position at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, where he stayed until 1991.^[3] From 1991 to 1999, Rosai was the James Ewing Alumni Professor and Chairman of Pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.^[3]

Work in Italy

Dr. Rosai has maintained ties to Italy, his home country, throughout his life. In 1982–1983 he spent a sabbatical year at the University of Florence and the University of Bologna. He chose to move permanently back to Italy in 2000, as Chairman of the Department of Anatomic Pathology at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Milan, Italy. In 2005, he became the Director of the Center for Oncologic Pathology Consultations at the Centro Diagnostico Italiano in Milan, Italy, where he continues his work teaching surgical pathology to young Italian, American, and international pathologists and also conducts his pathology consultation service. Rosai still has academic connections to the United States, as Adjunct Professor of Pathology at the Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University; Visiting Professor of Pathology at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital; and Senior Pathologist at Genzyme Genetics, currently LabCorp, New York City.

Scientific Publications

Rosai's pathology textbook has been translated to other languages. The image shows the Chinese edition of the Rosai & Ackerman Surgical Pathology, 9th edition (Photo courtesy of Dr. Hui Liu, head of the Department of Pathology of the Xuzhou Medical College, China)

Rosai is an author of more than 400 scientific peer-reviewed papers on topics in pathology,^[4] including the seminal descriptions of such entities as sinus histiocytosis with massive lymphadenopathy (Rosai-Dorfman disease), desmoplastic small round cell tumor, spindle-cell epithelial tumor with thymus-like differentiation of the thyroid, and sclerosing angiomatoid nodular transformation of the spleen.^[5][6][7][8] He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Of Surgical Pathology (ISSN 1066-8969) as well as a member of the editorial boards of several other pathology journals. Rosai was also Editor-in-Chief of the 3rd Series of the Atlas of Tumor Pathology of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), and author of AFIP fascicles on Tumors of the Thymus^[9] and Tumors of the Thyroid Gland.^[10] Rosai has edited a book on the history of American surgical pathology, called Guiding the Surgeon's Hand,^[11] and has been the principal author and editor of one of the main surgical pathology textbooks called Rosai and Ackerman's Surgical Pathology (now in its tenth edition, ISBN 9780323069694), which has been translated to several languages including Spanish and Chinese. He has also edited or co-edited 13 other books.^[4] Because of his professional accomplishments and his mentorship of many American and international professional trainees, Rosai has been called "the pathologist of pathologists".^[2]

The Rosai Slide Seminar Collection

During his career, Dr Rosai has accumulated a comprehensive collection of slide seminars including histopathology slides of interesting and educational pathological cases with the comments by connoted pathologists. During the 2010 annual meeting of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP), Dr. Rosai announced the donation of his entire slide seminars collection which is available as digital pathology files as an open and free educational and historical resource.^[12] The transformation of this precious collection into digital, 24/7, anytime-anywhere accessible format is still under way through a collaboration between Juan Rosai, USCAP, and Aperio ePathology. The collection consists of 18,439 cases originally presented at 1,495 pathology seminars,^[13] and comprises digital images of the original histopathological slides, clinical history, and diagnostic summaries, along with present day commentary by Rosai and other experts.

Professional Awards & Honors

In appreciation for his contributions to pathology, Rosai has received formal recognition from academic institutions around the world, as follows:

• Life Trustee of the American Board of Pathology;
• Doctorate Honoris Causa at the University of Bologna, Italy (1988);
• Maude Abbott Lecturer at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, Toronto, Canada (1995);^[1]
• Doctorate Honoris Causa at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain (1999);
• Doctorate Honoris Causa at the National University of Córdoba, Argentina (2000);
• Honorary Membership in the Royal College of Pathologists, England (2001);
• Fred Waldorf Stewart Award of the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, New York (2006);^[14]
• Doctorate Honoris Causa at the University of Ioannina, Greece (2007);
• Distinguished Pathologist Award of the Council of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, Washington, D.C. (2010)^[1]
• The Golden Medal Award of the International Academy of Pathology (2011)^[15]

External links

• Interview with Juan Rosai (full transcript and audio file), from "Conversations with Pathologists", a website based on a book project by Sue Armstrong, sponsored by Genentech and The Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
• The Rosai's Collection of Surgical Pathology Seminars, free educational website sponsored by the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology and Aperio Technologies.
• Rosai and Ackerman's Surgical Pathology, 10th Edition - Expert Consult

Other Pertinent Topics

• Surgical pathology
• Digital pathology
• List of pathologists

References