Robert T. McCluskey; doctor specialized in kidney ailments
Robert Timmons McCluskey, former head of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, always had a pithy Elizabethan quote at the ready and could occasionally be heard giving a stirring rendition of ``Die Lorelei" in German.
Dr. McCluskey, known to most as ``Mac," died Thursday at his home in Brookline from complications of prostate cancer. He was 83.
Dr. McCluskey specialized in identifying the ailments of kidneys, using the latest techniques to study layers of tissues that often contained vital information about a patient's maladies and prognosis.
Using immunofluorescence, which utilizes lighting and dyes to label antibodies and antigens, Dr. McCluskey and others in his lab illuminated key areas of the tissue cells, making it easier to determine which part of the kidney was causing problems for a patient.
Their goal was to help unravel the mystery of the various illnesses that plague the kidney. Over the years, his research helped to show the natural history of acute post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis, a disorder of the kidney that involves inflammation.
And Dr. McCluskey helped demonstrate the critical role of clotting in glomerulonephritis, a type of kidney disease. His lab also helped tackle a chronic autoimmune disorder often linked to liver inflammation resulting from hepatitis C.
At MGH, Dr. McCluskey helped to train up-and-coming residents. He also helped put together grant proposals, and did much of the laboratory's long-range planning, developing new ideas for areas to study.
Dr. McCluskey's work also extended to the World Health Organization, where he helped create a classification system for different forms of lupus nephritis that was key to the organization's understanding of the disease.
``It was really his joy he had in discovering something new -- he just loved new ideas," Dr. Robert Colvin, his successor, said. ``He represented someone who was always looking for something new and always was very skeptical of dogma."
He wrote about his findings in medical journals, penning more than 200 papers on the role of the immune system in kidney disease, according to hospital officials. He started his own scientific journal, Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology.
The same ability to memorize vast quantities of medical knowledge allowed him to absorb long passages of Shakespeare, and his ability to interject a well-timed Elizabethan quote into the normal flow of conversation was well-known, relatives and friends said.
For about a decade, Dr. McCluskey and a group of friends would gather on his porch and read the bard's plays in dramatic fashion -- generally the tragedies.
With Dr. McCluskey, ``there was an intellectual curiosity that was rather broad-based," his wife, Jean, said.
The New Haven native earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1944 and his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine in 1947. He trained in pathology at Kings County Hospital and Bellevue Hospital before teaching pathology at New York University, where he ran the laboratories at the university's hospital.
He was recruited to lead the department of pathology at the State University of New York at Buffalo before joining the Harvard University Medical School in the early 1970s.
His brother, Donald, of Block Island and Vail, Colo., helped establish the Robert T. McCluskey Endowment at Yale's School of Medicine, aimed at supporting researchers during the early stages of their careers, according to family and hospital officials.
In addition to his wife and brother, he leaves a son, James, of Brookline; and a daughter, Ann T. Farr, of Woods Hole.
