David B. Sachar, MD, center, with event emcee Frank Sesno, Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, and Meredith Asbury, Co-Chair of the Golden Goose Award, and Policy Officer at the Association of American Universities.
At the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, September 10, bipartisan Congressional supporters and representatives from science and higher education organizations saluted five scientists whose work has transformed the lives of countless millions of people.
Among the honorees was David B. Sachar, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Director Emeritus of the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology, whose seminal research into cholera—and the landmark clinical human trials that followed—is credited with saving approximately 50 million lives worldwide.
The honor they received, the Golden Goose Award, recognizes scientists whose federally funded work—which may have been considered silly, odd, or obscure when first conducted—has resulted in profound benefits to society. The effort is led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Cholera is an acute bacterial infection in human intestines that causes an immediate loss of water and electrolytes, and without urgent treatment, results in death. At one time, diarrheal diseases like cholera were the leading cause of infant mortality in the world.
For Dr. Sachar, his work involved learning how to measure electrolyte transport across a frog skin in the laboratory and then adapting that technique for the first time to the measurement of intestinal activity in humans in Bangladesh in 1966. By studying patients with cholera, he additionally was able to illuminate the underlying physiological cause for the deadly diarrhea provoked by this disease. His work ultimately contributed to the development of a simple oral solution, known as oral rehydration therapy, which cut the fatality rate by 99 percent. Later, Dr. Sachar, a specialist in inflammatory bowel disease, joined Mount Sinai, where he was instrumental in laying the foundation for the current international classification of Crohn’s disease.
“Our work shows not only the amazing and often unpredictable medical and social benefits of basic research, but also exemplifies the principle that these benefits may not be fully realized until we take the science from the laboratory and carry it directly to where the disease is,” says Dr. Sachar.