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| Noel R. Rose, MD, PhD |
Noel R. Rose, MD, PhD, of the Department of Pathology, won a 2019 Golden Goose Award for his unexpected discovery that became seminal to our understanding of autoimmunity. This award honors scientists whose federally funded work may have been considered silly, odd or obscure when first conducted, but has resulted in significant benefits to society.
Rose shares the award with his late mentor and collaborator, Ernest Witebsky, MD, in whose University of Buffalo School of Medicine lab he made the groundbreaking finding.
When Rose joined the lab, he aimed to study molecules specific to certain organs of the body in hopes of learning more about how they worked, perhaps even using them to screen for cancer. Surprisingly, during his experiments on a substance produced by the thyroid gland known as thyroglobulin, he found evidence that the body can generate an immune response to its own proteins. This went against all scientific understanding at the time. Rose and Witebsky followed the unexpected evidence to where it led, and science now recognizes scores of autoimmune diseases affecting millions of Americans.
With a career spanning almost 70 years, Rose has made numerous pivotal contributions to the field of immunology and the understanding of autoimmune disease. He has published more than 880 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has edited or co-edited 22 books, including the classic textbook The Autoimmune Diseases.
The Golden Goose Award was conceived in 2012 by U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper as a counterpoint to criticisms of basic research as wasteful federal spending. Created by a coalition of business, university and scientific organizations, the program is led today by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Its awards committee includes a bipartisan group of Congressional supporters and several scientific and higher education organizations.
