Physician HENRY WILLIS BAXLEY created the first named professorship at the School of Medicine and the second named professorship in the university. The income from this endowment, invested by Hopkins over the past century, continues to provide support to the Department of Pathology. A Baltimore native, Dr. Baxley helped found the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. He died in 1876.
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Baxley Professorship in Pathology
School of Medicine
Established in 1901 by the estate of Henry Willis Baxley
Held by Ralph H. Hruban
RALPH H. HRUBAN, MD, who became the ninth Baxley Professor and Director of the Department of Pathology on July 1, 2015, is an internationally recognized pancreatic cancer researcher. He is a 1985 Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumnus. Dr. Hruban completed his residency training at Johns Hopkins and joined the faculty in 1990.
Dr. Hruban is also the Director of The Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center. The pancreatic cancer research team at Johns Hopkins includes many of the world’s leading experts in pancreatic cancer. Through their extensive research, they have discovered many of the fundamental genetic changes that drive pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Hruban has received numerous awards including the Arthur Purdy Stout Prize for significant career achievements in surgical pathology, the Ramzi Cotran Award from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, the PanCAN Medical Visionary Award, the Team Science Award from the American Association for Cancer Research, the Ruth Brufsky Award for Excellence in Clinical Research for Pancreatic Cancer, the Frank H. Netter Award for Special Contributions to Medical Education, the Ranice W. Crosby Distinguished Achievement Award for scholarly contributions to the advancement of art as applied to the sciences, the Ruth Leff Siegel Award for Excellence in Pancreatic Cancer Research, and the 2013 Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2013, he was elected a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Dr. Hruban is recognized by ExpertScape.com as the leading expert in the world on pancreatic cancer. He has also received five teaching awards from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, including the Educational Innovation Award. Dr. Hruban was recognized by the Institute for Scientific Information as a highly cited researcher and by Essential Science Indicators as the most highly cited pancreatic cancer scientist. In addition to his research efforts, Dr. Hruban founded The National Familial Pancreas Tumor Registry at Johns Hopkins and helped to create the Johns Hopkins Pancreatic Cancer Web Page (http://pathology.jhu.edu/pc ). He created an award-winning iPad application to teach pancreas pathology (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/atlas-of-pancreas-pathology/id474845392?mt=8 ), as well as iPhone and iPAD apps for patients with pancreatic cancer (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icarebook-hd/id697194060?mt=8), and produced an award-winning documentary on the life of William Stewart Halsted, a surgeon, who was one of the four original medical professors at Johns Hopkins (http://HalstedTheDocumentary.org).