Professor Sam Sideman: A Tribute

Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. ISSN 0077-8923

A N N A L S O F T H E N E W Y O R K A C A D E M Y O F SC I E N C E S Issue: Analysis of Cardiac Development

Professor Sam Sideman: A Tribute

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Professor Sam Sideman and his loving family and friends: Naomi, Gil, Adi, and Anat, with a side note of gratitude to the families and friends who diligently encouraged and supported our endeavors in promoting the cause of medicine and science as it advances into the future. This volume memorializes Professor Samuel Sideman and his legacy to the world of integrated cardiac science. Samuel Sideman was born in Haifa, Israel in 1929. He received his B.Sc. in chemical engineering from the Technion, Haifa, followed in 1953 by his master’s degree in chemical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York. In 1960 he received the Doctor of Science degree from the Technion. His major interests and activities focused on understanding the scientific basis of transport phenomena and the study of mass transfer in physiologic systems, with particular emphasis on the cardiac system. These efforts were particularly marked by his innovative action for science communication and by his relentless pursuit of international cooperation with scientists of various disciplines. He joined the Technion in 1957, where he served over the years as dean of students, chairman of the Faculty Association, chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and as a board member. His professional career included consultation for the Israel Water Desalination Corporation and visiting professorships at Oklahoma State University, the City College of New York, the University of Houston (Texas), and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In addition to an extensive research program and hundreds of scientific publications, his professional activities included organizing and chairing numerous international meetings. He served as president of the International Assembly for Heat Transfer Conferences and was a member of the International Committee of Heat and Mass Transfer, serving on both the scientific council and the executive committee. Professor Sideman was on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, the Journal of Engineering Physics and Thermodynamics, the Journal of Multiphase Flow Systems, the Journal of Artificial Cells and Organs, and the journal Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science. He authored and edited 20 books and was co-author of more than 400 scientific publications. He held five patents in the fields of separation of highmolecular-weight components, artificial blood substitutes, and cardiac diagnostics. Professor Sideman received the Hebrew Technical Institute Graduate Fellowship (1953–1955); the American National Science Foundation—Senior Foreign Scientist Fellowship (1964–1965); a citation from the American Institute of Chemical Engineering (1965); the Arnon Award, Israel Association of Engineers and Architects (1968); the Landau Award, Israel Research Awards Directors (1976); and the BJUJA Award, Israel Association of Biochemists (1979). He was nominated as the R.J. Matas/Winnipeg Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering (1981); Fellow, American Institute of Chemical Engineering (1985); Fellow, the New York Academy of Sciences (1986); and Senior Member, the Biomedical Engineering Society (1989). He received the Israel Cardiology Society Award for Most Original Research (1990), the Henry Gutwirth Research Award (1992), the Technion–New England Award for Excellence (1994), and the Lee Silver Friedman Research Award. Professor Sideman was given an honorary membership in the Israel Society of doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05105.x c 2010 New York Academy of Sciences. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1188 (2010) 1–3 

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Sam Sideman: In memoriam

A Tribute to Sam

Biomedical Engineering (1999) and was a founding member of the Academic Francophone d’Ing´enieurs (1993). The prestigious Samuel Sideman Medal was established in his honor by the Cardiovascular Medicine and Science Society (1997). In 1983, Professor Sideman initiated and co-founded with Professor Rafael Beyar the Heart System Research Center at the Julius Silver Institute of Biomedical Engineering, concentrating on computer simulation of the cardiac system, transport phenomena, and interactions of the various parameters affecting cardiac performance. Professor Sideman’s interests included the analysis, modeling, and simulation of the function of the heart. His major thrust, along with his colleagues Professors Rafael Beyar and Amir Landesberg, and other senior members at the Technion, was to develop a theoretical model and analytic tools relating basic physiology to global cardiac behavior, based on its geometry, fiber structure, sarcomere function, and molecular kinetics. The novelty of the approach taken by Professor Sam Sideman, together with these major collaborators, is shown by three-dimensional studies and analyses of the various distributed transmural parameters affecting the local and global cardiac performance that can adequately describe quantitative changes in cardiac function. The integrated interactive model, combining cardiac mechanics, coronary flow, and mass transport allows the determination of intramyocardial pressure. This provides new insight into coronary flow under various loading and stress conditions. Significant understanding of the control mechanism affecting metabolic energetics and cardiac contraction efficiency is gained, based on the description of intracellular cross-bridge cycling and calcium kinetics. This understanding of the three-dimensional structure and function of the heart then led to the objective quantitative characterization of normal and abnormal hearts, including local wall stress, thickness, and shape changes due to various regional and volumetric pathologic conditions. A series of interacting meetings to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and interaction was launched in 1983. The highly acclaimed Henry Goldberg/Larry Fairberg Cardiac Workshops organized by Professors Sideman and Beyar and recently with Professor Landesberg, combined engineering sciences with medical/physiologic sciences to yield working models and quantitative analyses and simulation involving the multiparametric multidisciplined cardiac system. These high-caliber scientific meetings provided young scientists with the opportunities for scientific and personal communication and interaction with world leaders in the field. The 20 volumes of the proceedings of these convocations are living testimonials to Professor Sideman’s extraordinary scientific contributions. Professor Sam Sideman was well known for his warm and friendly personality, and many of the world leaders who participated in his workshops and seminars became friends and collaborators in his research as well as in his science-communication endeavors. He was working full steam toward the Sixth Fairberg meeting to be held in Israel and had constructed the outline for the meeting to be held on his 80th birthday. He did not live to see this last effort materialize, but we, Sam’s students, collaborators, and international friends, gathered in Haifa at the Technion, in Sam’s home city and institution, to honor and recognize his great achievements by presenting and discussing the topics close to his heart.

Acknowledgments We gratefully remember and acknowledge our departed friends, Larry and Horti Fairberg of the American Technion Society, New York, whose endowment has facilitated this series of cardiac conferences. This volume is also in memory of them. We thank the International Scientific and Program Committees and the symposium participants; Mrs. Betty Kazin, our secretary, for her devotion and the high level of professional care that she has given; and our sponsors, the

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c 2010 New York Academy of Sciences. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1188 (2010) 1–3 

A Tribute to Sam

Sam Sideman: In memoriam

Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, and the Rambam Health Care Campus, for providing the academic and clinical environment for practicing scientists.

Rafael Beyar Amir Landesberg Technion–Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, Israel

c 2010 New York Academy of Sciences. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1188 (2010) 1–3 

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