Biographical Sketch
E.H. Ahrens, Jr.

Edward H. Ahrens, Jr. was born in Chicago, IL in 1915. Early in life his parents moved to Riverdale, NY, where his education began. Later, he entered the Hotchkiss School in Connectivut, and thereafter, Harvard College, majoring in Germanic languages and graduating in 1937 Magna cum laude. He then entered medical school at Harvard, graduating in cum laude in 1941. He elcted to become a pediatrician and interned in pediatrics at the Babies Hospital of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York 1942-43. His World War II service was with the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps.

At the end of the war and because of a chance acquaintanceship with the family of Donald Van Slyke, he visited the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. After conversation with Dr. Van Slyke, he was accepted into his laboratory and was introduced to analytical chemistry during 1946-49 when he served as an assistant in the Van Slyke laboratory. Thereafter, he worked with Lyman Craig, one of the pioneers of contercurrent distribution. Ahrens returned for a brief time to the Babies Hospital in NY to be Chief Resident in Pediatrics. When he returned to Rockefeller in 1952, he began an investigative career and continuous association with Rockefeller for nearly 45 years. He became a Professor at Rockefeller University in 1960 and a Professor Emeritus in 1985. Along with his professorship at Rockefeller, he maintained close ties with other institutions, in particular, Cornell University and the New York Hospital. He served as the Master Professor of Medicine at Cornell University from 1970-74 while maintaining his full laboratory schedule at Rockefeller.

As is befitting someone who trained first in pediatrics, he became board certified in pediatrics and of course became a member of the Society for Pediatric Research. He received offers from three medical schools in New York City to become Chairman of Pediatrics, but decided to continue his research career at Rockefeller.

As his research interests developed, he ascended the ladder of society memberships and awards, being made a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. Simultaneously, he became involved with FASEB through the American Society for Biological Chemists. Although his nutritional research marked him as a leader of nutrition very early in his career, most of his societal connections were with biologic chemists and clinical investigators.

Very early in the great growth phase of the NIH, he served on the NOH Metabolism Study Section and was its chairman from 1959-61. He already had chaired a Gordon Conference on Lipid Metabolism, and in fact, was the first chairman of a Gordon Conference on Lipid Metabolism. Prior to that, the conferees met under the more amorphous name, "blood". Having learned of the needs of other investigators, particularly at the Gordon Conference, he became convinced of the necessity of having a journal for those new lipid researchers who were developing their science rapidly in the mid-fifties. He therefore founded and was the first editor of the Journal of Lipid Research. The Journal was truly his creation.

He has been on a large number of advisory groups and has received many honors. Those which he holds closest to his heart are the McCollum Award of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, 1969, and Honorary Degrees from the University of Lund in 1976 and the University o Edinburgh in 1988, as well as membership in the National Academy of Science and Institute of Medicine.

Ahrens is recognized as an international figure in nutritional science and lipid metabolism. he developed close ties with workers overseas. He spent one year as a Guest Investigator with the Medical Research Council in London working with Alan Battersby in Cambridge. During his English years, he travelled widely on the continent, maintaining close relationships with many centers of lipid research, particularly, in Scotland and in West Germany. For example, Ernst Klenk, originally, and now, Willy Stoffel, of Cologne were close friends and collaborators.

There was no such thing as retirement for Ahrens. During his emeritus years at Rockefeller, he worked very carefully, amassing data for his well known book on clinical investigation. He continued to work in behalf of the promotion of clinical investigation and nutrition. A life long interest in botany flourished when he became a member of the Board of Managers of the New York Botanical Garden. At approximately the same time, he decided to build an arboretum for the study of special trees in the uplands of the Catskill mountains close to his summer home in NY. He founded and was the President of the Onteora Arboretum which is aesthetically rewarding to all who visit, but is primarily a scientific project for the determination of optimal planting techniques and the proper selection of species of trees for survival in the harsh winters of high altitudes in the northeastern United States.

Ahrens remains beloved by his 70 trainees, by his colleagues at Rockefeller and all those who knew him as a continuously energetic, inquisitive man. His career has been marked by not only industry, but by innovation and a deep sense of honesty and directness in all of his contacts. The Rockefeller campus and the Rockefeller University Hospital were fortunate to be graced by his continued presence.