Internationally renowned macrophage biologist Jeffrey (Jeff) W. Pollard passed away peacefully at the age of 73 on 1 May 2023. Jeff was Professor of Resilience Biology in the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, UK, Professor Emeritus of Developmental and Molecular Biology at the Albert Einstein Medical College of New York, USA, and for nearly a decade was the director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Reproductive Health (CRH) at the University of Edinburgh.

Jeff’s research passions were in women’s reproductive health, specifically the mechanisms of action of female sex steroid hormones in controlling cell proliferation, and in tumor-associated macrophage (TAM) biology, focusing on their multifaceted contribution to cancer progression. His longstanding collaborations with Richard Stanley identified the macrophage growth factor, colony-stimulating factor 1 (CSF1), as a regulator of placental development1, underlying macrophage deficiency in the osteopetrotic (op/op) mouse2, and being crucial for postnatal mammary gland development during pregnancy3. These studies presaged his group’s seminal research identifying macrophages as master regulators of mammary adenocarcinoma development and metastasis4. It was this work that set the stage for much of Jeff’s research in cancer biology for the last 23 years, during which his laboratory contributed over 200 publications, culminating in a comprehensive review providing a timeline of TAM biology in cancer5 — one of his final gifts to the community. Jeff’s contributions to our current understanding of macrophage biology as regulators of tissue homeostasis and disease progression set the stage for the development of anti-cancer myeloid-targeted agents that are now in clinical trials as combination therapies for numerous cancer types.

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