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Obituary - Arthur H. Cohen

Dear Friends and Colleagues,                                                                                            

It is with great sadness that I share with you the passing of Arthur H. Cohen on May 17, 2022 at the age of 80.

Arthur graduated from Brooklyn College in 1963 and completed his MD degree and a medical internship at SUNY at Buffalo.  He began his pathology residency at Mt. Sinai in NY and completed it in 1972 at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he remained on the faculty for 21.5 years.  He then moved to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for an additional 21.5 years, satisfying his sense of conclusiveness, where he was Professor of Pathology and Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine and Professor of Pathology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Arthur was an exemplary renal pathologist who also enjoyed ultrastructural pathology.  He was largely self-taught in renal pathology developing one of the first kidney biopsy services integrating light, immunofluorescence and electron microcopies with clinical pathologic correlation in the country at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where also established a renal pathology fellowship.  The biopsy service expanded after the move to Cedars-Sinai, where he was Director of Renal Pathology and Electron Microscopy, and served as Anatomic Pathology Director for more than a decade.   

Arthur was a highly respected clinician who attracted kidney biopsy consults from around the world.  He played a major role in the acceptance of the Renal Pathology Club, later the Renal Pathology Society, as a USCAP Companion Society.  He was a founding member and president of the RPS, and a recipient of the RPS Jacob Churg award and the Gift of Life award from the National Kidney Foundation.  As a gifted and deeply committed teacher, Arthur promoted renal pathology education around the globe, serving on the American Society of Nephrology Post-Graduate Education Committee and the International Society of Nephrology Global Outreach program.  He was a much sought-after lecturer and also educated many visiting pathologists and nephrologists from near and far. 

As a leader in renal pathology, Arthur made significant scholarly contributions to the field starting in the mid-1970s.  His work with Wayne Border established in situ immune complex formation as the mechanism for the development of membranous nephropathy, and early-on, the two identified transforming growth factor-beta as an important cytokine in the evolution of renal fibrosis and sclerosis.  He never tired of a good professional disagreement in private or in public. 

His warmth, enthusiasm, friendliness, sense of humor and curiosity made him a wonderful collaborator, colleague, mentor and friend. 

He will be sorely missed.

The family has requested that any donations in Arthur’s name be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, the National Kidney Foundation, or anywhere else that makes you think about Arthur.

Cynthia C. Nast, MD, FASN

Professor of Pathology

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

8700 Beverly Blvd. 

Los Angeles, CA 90048

310-423-6658