UW News

May 18, 1998

Dr. Richard Blandau, an international figure in research on reproductive biology, died May 11 at age 86.

UW Health Sciences/UW Medicine

Dr. Richard J. Blandau, an early leader of the University of Washington School of Medicine and an international figure in research on reproductive biology, died Monday afternoon, May 11, at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. He was 86.

Dr. Blandau was renowned for his basic studies of ovulation, fertilization, and embryonic development. His findings furthered the scientific understanding of reproduction and were the foundation for many clinical advances in human fertility. He authored 138 articles, edited six textbooks, and produced 14 teaching and research films. One received a 1959 Vienna Film Festival Award.

Dr. Blandau grew up in Puyallup Valley, the son of a Tacoma minister, the late Rev. R. A. Blandau, former pastor of Calvary Baptist Church. He was born in Erie, Pa., in 1911. After receiving an A.B. degree in biology and chemistry from Linfield College in 1935, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in 1939 from Brown University, and an M.D. degree in 1948 from the University of Rochester.

Dr. Blandau served as a Fellow of the National Research Council at Yale University, and later on the medical faculty of Brown, Harvard University and the University of Rochester. He was then recruited to join the original faculty of the UW School of Medicine. In 1949, Dr. Blandau became an associate professor in the Department of Anatomy, now called Biological Structure.

“The invitation was a godsend,” Dr. Blandau, reminiscing in 1986, had said. “This was a fantastic place to do interdisciplinary research. I was absolutely delighted to be at the UW and wouldn’t have left it for the world. My first office was a wooden hut. We accepted inconveniences and didn’t need everything in tip-top shape. The jackhammers never stopped in all my years on campus.”

Dr. Blandau was an assistant dean for the medical school from 1955 to 1960, and an associate dean from 1960 to 1964. The only other administrator in the main medical school office when he started was Dean George Aagaard. Dr. Blandau was dedicated to student matters and to creating a curriculum that would best prepare new physicians. He fostered an atmosphere of respect for students, and guided some through difficult times. He taught every UW medical student from 1949 until his retirement in 1981.

“Dr. Blandau was not only an effective teacher,” said Dr. William O. Robertson, professor of pediatrics and a long-time colleague, “he was also an advocate for students. He took seriously the passage from medical student to physician. Except when seriously ill, he donned his academic regalia and attended virtually every Investiture of Doctoral Hoods and Hippocratic Oath ceremony and Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society induction to show his admiration for the graduates.” Dr. Blandau saved letters from his former students and considered these personal tributes more important than the many awards conferred on him as a scientist.

A modest man who would think it a breach of good manners to call any attention to himself, Dr. Blandau acted with courtesy and civility. He held quiet but firm convictions about his responsibilities as a physician, teacher and scientist. Those who knew him realized that underlying his apparent formality was a deep warmth for his students, colleagues and family. His sister, Esther Hughes, describing him as a wonderful brother, recalled his devotion to their parents and relatives, and how he had recently tended garden every week for another, homebound sister to make her yard beautiful for her enjoyment.

Dr. Blandau’s academic honors and research activities were legion. He was a past president of the American Fertility Society, the American Association of Anatomists, and the Society for the Study of Reproduction. He received the Borden Research Award, the Ortho Research Award, the Barren Foundation Gold Medal, and was designated an Outstanding Teacher by the 1980 graduating class. He lectured around the globe, and was a member of many advisory groups, including the National Advisory Council on Child Health and Human Development, the World Health Organization Panel on Human Reproduction, the Population Crisis Committee, the NIH Advisory Committee on Population Affairs, and the International Childbirth Association. He was commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel in 1979 by the Governor of Kentucky.

A former student, Dr. Wayne Crill, professor and chair of the UW Department of Physiology and Biophysics, said, “Dr. Blandau was scholarly in his approach to scientific questions, a quality I and everyone else greatly admired. He made major contributions to the understanding of fertilization. The direct evidence he obtained in the 1950s of ovulation and fertilization in mammals with time-lapsed photography was remarkable for his time.”

Dr. Robert Van Citters, dean emeritus of the UW School of Medicine, in organizing a symposium in 1981 on the occasion of Dr. Blandau’s retirement, wrote, “Dr. Blandau served the medical school with great distinction since its very beginning and has left his mark on the School, the Department of Biological Structure, and a great number of students.”

Dr. Blandau was the husband of the late Olive Blandau. He is survived by his sister Esther Hughes of Santa Cruz, Calif.; his sister and brother-in-law, Dorothy and Bill Baker of Riverview, Fla., and his son and daughter, Noel Blandau and Mary Alena Blandau, of Brookings, Ore. Memorial Services will be held at 2 p.m., Friday, May 15, at Calvin Presbyterian Church, 18826 Third Avenue NW, Shoreline, Wash. Remembrances may be made to his church.