A Life in Passing: Jonathan Gray

Excerpt

Jonathan Gray died yesterday. Five years ago, he underwent an esophageal resection for cancer, developed an aorto-esophageal fistula requiring an emergent colonic interposition and survived to develop metastatic disease to the liver, initially successfully treated with oxaliplatin and a taxane containing regimen. Gifted with a sense of life's meaning and purpose, a rather remarkable ability to single out the best and brightest most capable of helping him, he was a tireless enthusiast for making novel therapies available to patients, and rallied against the futility of the current drug development process – too slow, too ineffective, and as he faced his own certain and early mortality, impossibly oriented for the patient with cancer to limited success for a limited number of individuals with extraordinarily slow mechanisms. …