Barnett "Barney" Rosenberg was born on November 16, 1926 in New York. He received his B.S. degree in physics from Brooklyn College in 1948 and his master's and doctoral degrees in physics from New York University. He came to MSU in 1961 as an associate professor of biophysics. During his tenure at the university, Rosenberg and colleagues Loretta Van Camp, Thomas Krigas, and Andrew Thompson developed the anti-cancer drug cisplatin. Rosenberg and the members of his lab then began researching the use of cisplatin on cells in cancerous tumors and in 1968 they confirmed that it could inhibit cancer cells. In 1971, cisplatin was used in clinical trials in humans. The drug cisplatin was approved for use by the FDA in 1978. His interest in other areas of research, not related to platinum, inspired him to found the Barros Research Institute in Holt, Michigan in 1982. Rosenberg retired from MSU in 1997 and passed away on August 8, 2009.
Read
