The Leland Ira Doan Research Professorship in Vascular Surgery

Gilbert R. Upchurch Jr., M.D., associate professor in the Department of Surgery, became the first Leland Ira Doan Research Professor of Vascular Surgery on September 8. Upchurch joined the U-M in 1999 as assistant professor under the leadership of James Stanley, M.D., and was promoted to associate professor in 2004. He is internationally recognized for his work with vessel wall matrix remodeling related to aneurysm formation, and is an expert on the role of nitric oxide and metalloproteinases as they relate to remodeling of the aorta in experimental models of aortic aneurysms.

Gilbert Upchurch; Allen Lichter; Junia and Ted Doan Photo: Martin Vloet

Educated at the U-M, Leland Ira Doan was a former president of the Dow Chemical Company (founded by his father-in-law), a Regent of the University of Michigan (1952-59) and Regent Emeritus until his death in 1974. In 1953, he established an endowed fund for research and education in the medical sciences in the name of his mother, Hester Spencer Doan. Doan’s children Herbert D. “Ted” Doan and Dorothy Margaret “Honey” Doan converted the fund into the Leland Ira Doan Research Professorship in Vascular Surgery, to serve as a perpetual memorial to their father’s strong support and love of the U-M. 

—Scott Shrake

Also:

The Stefan S. Fajans, M.D./ GlaxoSmithKline Professorship in Diabetes

Millie Schembechler Professorship in Adrenal Cancer

The Leland Ira Doan Research Professorship in Vascular Surgery

The Lewis and Lillian Becker Professorship in Dermatology