Thomas C. Westfall, Ph.D.: 1937-2023

10/18/2023

Thomas C. Westfall, Ph.D., chair emeritus of the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Saint Louis University, died Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. He was 85.

Westfall served as chair of the Department of Pharmacology, which later became the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, for 34 years, from 1979 until 2013. 

"During his life, Dr. Westfall was a wonderful friend, colleague, mentor, and teacher to so many,” said Daniela Salvemini, Ph.D., the current William Beaumont Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at SLU. “His impact was truly immense, and he will be long remembered with great fondness and admiration."

Born in Latrobe, Pa., on Oct. 31, 1937, Westfall attended West Virginia University on a wrestling scholarship. He captained the varsity wrestling team from 1957-1959 and won several conference championships, and qualified three times for the NCAA championships. Westfall earned both his BA and Ph.D. from West Virginia University and went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship with Professor U.S. von Euler, the 1970 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. 

Upon returning to the United States, Westfall joined the faculty of West Virginia University School of Medicine for two years before moving to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1965, where he remained until 1979, when he was recruited to Saint Louis University School of Medicine to become chair of the Department of Pharmacology. 

In 1990 he became the first William Beaumont Professor and Chair of the newly formed Department of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences (now Pharmacology and Physiology), a position he held until 2013. 

During his tenure as chair, Westfall oversaw the recruitment of many new faculty members and a 20-fold increase in extramural funding. The NIH ranking of the department reached 25 (out of 130 nationwide) four times during the 1990s.

Westfall’s research interests centered on understanding the mechanisms regulating the synthesis and release of catecholamines from the central and autonomic nervous systems. He authored or co-authored over 217 publications, including 161 peer-reviewed articles, 17 invited symposium papers, 12 review articles, and 25 textbook chapters, including six in the textbook Goodman & Gilman’s: The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 

In 2021, he published “The History of Pharmacology and Physiology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.” The book is a comprehensive history of pharmacology and physiology at SLU from 1842 to the present day. Westfall said the idea for the book originated out of curiosity about the men and women who preceded him as chairs and faculty members in the departments of the University starting with its inception in 1837. 

Over his career, Westfall was the recipient of numerous research grants, including twenty-eight from the NIH, totaling more than $13 million.

Westfall served on numerous editorial boards, boards of academic societies, federal review panels, NIH study sections, and executive committees of numerous professional societies, including the Association of Medical School Pharmacology Chairs, the American Association for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

During his long career, Westfall mentored 27 Ph.D. students, 17 post-doctoral fellows, and numerous summer medical student trainees. He was program director for two T32 training grants from the NIH, one, Training in Pharmacological Sciences, which is still in force today, having been continuously funded for over 32 years. 

Westfall taught extensively in the medical and graduate curricula. He was course director for Medical Pharmacology (later Principles of Pharmacology) for 37 years, during which time he received many teaching awards from medical students, including the Golden Apple Award and the Distinguished Teaching Award for Presentation Skills in Basic Science. He was inducted into the Academy of Educators at Saint Louis University in 2015 and the Academy of Pharmacology Educators of ASPET in 2016.

Visitation for Westfall is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 27, at Bopp Chapel in Kirkwood. A funeral ceremony will begin at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28, also at Bopp Chapel.