At Columbia University, Donald Landry ’75 has many roles.
“The medical students at Columbia are incredibly bright,” he says. “I teach at various points in their studies. My clinical practice comes into play when the [intensive care unit] calls me in to consult on patients who are in shock. I specialize in critical-care nephrology.”
However, Landry is most well known within the scientific and academic community for his research.
“My clinical work has led to discoveries in the lab,” he says.
His credits include creation of an artificial anti-cocaine enzyme that blocks the drug before it gets to the brain, discovery of a hormone problem in shock patients, and development of criteria for the viability of embryos fertilized in vitro, as well as the yet unproven hypothesis that live stem cells can be found in non-viable embryos.
He is refining the anti-cocaine enzyme with support from a $1.8 million grant awarded by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Addicts early in treatment who are immunized with it would not experience a high if they relapsed and used cocaine, which would help break the cycle of addiction.
Landry has had a lifelong interest in chemistry, knowing from childhood that he would pursue his love of science in his professional career. He highly esteems his chemistry major at Lafayette.
“Dr.[Joseph] Sherma, head of the department then, was spectacular,” he says. “He is a world expert, with an enormous publication record. With all of that, he still took an incredible interest in the students. We have stayed in touch.
“Academically, I found Lafayette fantastic. I benefited hugely from the close associations with almost everyone in department of chemistry and from the opportunity to learn the art of research. When I got to Harvard to begin my Ph.D. in organic chemistry I was extremely well prepared – more so than my peers there, I believe. I was awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship and Lafayette can be credited with that.”
Many friendships from Landry’s time at Lafayette have lasted, as has the versatility of his education – evidenced by his multiple roles at Columbia.
“You cannot underestimate the virtue of flexibility in one’s professional career,” says Landry. “As opportunities have arisen it has been great to take advantage of them. I have never felt stuck in one path.”
Throughout his career, Landry has remained focused on his belief in the primacy of family. With two teenagers at home, he never works weekends, always takes three weeks of vacation, and misses bedtime only on rare occasions.
“I’ve traveled to Japan and back in 47 hours just so that I wouldn’t miss more than one night with my family. I’ve been extreme in this ideal because it was the only way I felt I could live it.”