Dr. Sarah Chinn Kalser
KALSER: Dr. Sarah Chinn Kalser passed away peacefully on March 4, 2023, surrounded by her loving family. She was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1929, the youngest of four children. Sarah was the first women in her family to go to college. She studied biochemistry at Penn State (’51), then her love of science took her to Northwestern, where she was among the first women to receive an MA. In 1952, Sarah married Ben Kalser, a decorated D-Day veteran and computer engineer. They lived in Monroeville until a few years after earning her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh, when they moved to Bethesda, Maryland. That is where they built an amazing life together including a vibrant circle of friends, an adoration and love for their dogs, and a love of travel that took them on adventurous vacations all over the world. Dr. Kalser worked for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 25 years where she became one of the first women administrators. She was the first female grants administrator at what was then the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Disease, and the first female program director at the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Her scientific contributions include foundational research on atropine metabolism and the effect of hypothermia and chronic cold exposure on drug metabolism by the liver. As a project officer, she monitored scientific aspects of research on gallstones that led to the licensure of oral bile acid therapy. She also planned an NIH consensus development conference that helped establish liver transplantation as a viable clinical therapy for end-stage liver disease. For these contributions, she received numerous honors including: Distinguished Service Awards from both the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the American Gastroenterological Association, the NIH Award of Merit and the NIH Special Achievement Award. At her retirement from NIH, esteemed UPMC transplant physician, Thomas Starzl, was quoted as commenting, “I doubt if anyone on center stage or behind the scenes has ever done more for the development of modern gastroenterology and hepatology than Sarah.” After Ben died in 1996, Sarah found comfort in her many friends and in Judaism. She became a member of Beth El Synagogue in Bethesda where she celebrated her bat mitzvah. She continued her vibrant social life, community service and travel adventures with her many friends. Her generosity to family and friends was boundless; she gave freely of her love, time and resources. Sarah is survived by five nieces and nephews (Jeff Chinn, Steve Chinn, Sue Chinn Messinger, Marcia Mendelson Siegel and Gary Mendelson); six great- nieces and nephews (Laura, Liana, Elise, Kim, Bryna and Miles); eight great-great nieces and nephews (Sam, Haley, Liam, Elliott, Theo, Ruthie, Reese and Eva). She will be greatly missed by her friends and family. Sarah’s legacies live on in each of the people she touched as they serve their own communities, make their own contributions to the public good and continue to embrace life. Following services at Beth El Synagogue, interment was at Anshe Neisen Cemetery, Rosedale, Maryland. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Association of Women in Science, your local women’s shelter or refugee organization. PJC
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