Edward C. Franklin

Franklin was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928 and immigrated to the US in 1939 as an escapee from Nazism. After fleeing Nazi Germany, Franklin and his family spent a fifteen-month sojourn in Cuba until they were finally able to immigrate to New York City in 1940. He graduated from Townsend Harris High School in Queens, New York at the age of fifteen and went on to receive his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1946 where he graduated magna cum laude as a biochemistry major at the age of eighteen while also working full time. Franklin then received his medical degree from the N.Y.U. School of Medicine in 1950. After medical school, Franklin interned at New York's Beth Israel Hospital and did his residency in internal medicine at Montefiore Hospital and Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital. During this time, Franklin took two years off to serve military duty. In May 1956, Franklin married Dorothea Zucker-Franklin, a renowned hematologist and clinical researcher, and they had a daughter, Deborah Julie Franklin, PhD, M.D, who later went on to become director of cancer rehabilitation at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, . In 1955, Franklin started as research associate at the Rockefeller Institute and from 1958 to 1974 served as an assistant and full-time professor of medicine at N.Y.U. In 1974, He was elected president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979. On February 20, 1982, Franklin died of a brain tumor at the age of 54. Franklin was said to enjoy activities such as skiing, chamber music, literature, art and even owned a farm in the Berkshires that he routinely visited with his family. Franklin was described by a colleague as “a quiet and private man lacking the more overt exuberance of his wife.”

Edward Claus Franklin (April 14, 1928 – February 20, 1982) was a pioneering American immunologist and physician. He made major gains in the study of the aging process with contributions that led to the discovery of a group of abnormal protein aggregates known as amyloids, and played a key role in the fight against Arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Diabetes, and Cardiac arrhythmia. Franklin was a professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and director of Irvington House Institute. The New York Times called Franklin "an international authority on the human immune system".