In Remembrance: R. Michael Williams ’69, ’70MS Died on July 18 2024

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Dr. Robert Michael Williams, aka Dr. R. Michael Williams, passed away on July 18, 2024. Instead of winning the Nobel Prize for his lifetime work, he died unexpectedly.

He is one of those unsung heroes, well known in the scientific community, without whom the modern world would not exist. To summarize a fulfilling, exciting, and productive life of a gifted humanitarian who shared his profound talent and intellectual achievements unselfishly with family, friends, colleagues, and patients requires a proper biographical text. He was a rare individual with laudable accomplishments who, without being pretentious, carried himself with precise dignity and professionalism and an absolutely profound knowledge of immunology and the biology of cancer.  

Williams was the proud and only child of Robert Arvel Williams and Eva Mae Williams. As a loving child of caring parents, he specifically honored his Mom for making sure he followed God’s commandments, particularly never to tell a lie and to honor his mother and father; and his Dad for inspiration to be the very best at whatever path he chose as his life work. Williams was profoundly affected by his father’s death when he was 13 years old. He noticed a year before his Dad’s death, his Dad changed his heavy work schedule and became a daily full-time Dad, playing baseball, going fishing, becoming an assistant Little League coach, playing golf, and generally devoting time and energy to his son.  When he learned of his father’s terminal illness with lung cancer, this insight forged his future work in immunology, genetics, and cancer. To quote Williams, “I would have given anything to spend more time with my father, but it was too late. He had crossed the Rubicon.” As intense a human trauma it was for a young boy, he had the strength to concentrate and focus on the task at hand, and made it a goal to figure out why his father died and thought of what he could have done to have a little more time with his father.  

Williams was an excellent student with the gift of intelligence and a well-formulated philosophy, and with the upbringing that created a socially conscious human being capable of interacting with people in a meaningful fashion. He started working in labs when he was 14, and by the time he got to Yale College, he was publishing graduate student–level papers. He was valedictorian, and graduated from Yale College in 1969 with a BA degree in culture and behavior and honors with exceptional distinction, magna cum laude, and elected to Phi Beta Kappa.  He then graduated from Yale University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1970 with an MS degree in microbiology (molecular biology and biophysics) and was trained by Dr. Byron Waksman, who became like a father to him. The lifelong interest in immunology, on the scientific side, and the great personal relationship of the two renaissance men flourished and was cherished by both. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1974 with an MD degree, magna cum laude and honors with distinction in a special field, and elected Alpha Omega Alpha. That same year, he graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences with a PhD in immunology.  His predoctoral training was at Harvard with Dr. Baruj Benacerraf (Nobel Prize 1980), who was a tremendous influence in terms of experimental projects as well as being a personal friend. Williams and Benacerraf collaborated on 13 papers which became the basis for the Nobel committee to award the Nobel Prize to Benacerraf in 1980.  His experimental work was essential for the award, and in fact, it was Williams’s paper that was presented to the Nobel Committee.

Postdoctoral education formed the basis for the ultimate clinical practice as an oncologist. He was a clinical fellow in medicine with Dr. Eugene Braunwald at Harvard.  His clinical oncology training was at Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard with Dr. Emil T. Frei III, whose use of combination chemotherapy helped make certain cancers curable for the first time. Another influence was Dr. Edmond Yunis, whose research includes the genetic mapping of human major histocompatibility complex. They shared many experiences and truly enjoyed the bright camaraderie from the time they met at Harvard until Yunis’s death in 2023.  Williams became an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard before he even finished his training, and later became the youngest chief of medical oncology in the country.  He later became the cofounder of Cancer Treatment Centers of America which was sold to City of Hope in 2022.    

His medical education by leading physicians of the era gave Williams the understanding and knowledge of caring for patients who are ill, frightened, anxious, and compromised on many levels.  Taking from basics like Dr. Francis W. Peabody on The Care of the Patient and the years of real-life bedside rounds with medical luminaries such as Drs. Eugene Braunwald, Emil Frei III, Francis Moore, George Thorne, and Lew Dexter and numerous attending physicians, junior and senior residents, Williams understood that all of these gifted healers and clinicians had a common trait:  They treated the patient as a human being and the patient was the respected center of the rounds; and the very real aspect of relating to the actual patient while using one’s medical and scientific skills to optimize treatment and outcome was now part of Williams’s significant skills as a clinician. He treated patients as a human being and he treated all human beings as an equal in life. His premise going forward in his clinical practice was that all cancers are curable if you define cure as no detectable active cancer cells on a PET/CT scan done repeatedly or if you define cure as not dying directly from cancer.  His analysis and approach were very successful with respect to outcome for his patients.

Williams was a recipient of numerous awards, many listed above, and the author of over 100 scientific research papers, with his most recent publication in 2019.  His publications were a remarkable important series of clinically relevant articles from an accomplished researcher who now devoted professional energies to patient diagnosis, care, and treatment.  He believed in immunotherapy and CAR-T therapy before it was fashionable, getting his PhD on mouse IR (immune response).  With one of his best friends, Dr. Daniel Singer (affectionately called Danny by Williams), he conceived of an immunogenetic theory for overall survival: patients with the highest number of natural killer (NK) cells and IgG levels could survive viruses like HIV, cancer, and aging. Williams was phenomenally productive, publishing seven papers as a Yale undergraduate, one of which published as a sole author in PNAS.  He published 14 more papers while a graduate student.  He trained future luminaries like Dr. James Hildreth in his lab at Harvard and they remained friends until now.  Williams and Singer had already thought of how one’s immune response genes could affect aging, viral disease, autoimmunity, and cancer. Tolerance to self antigens, if broad enough, could leave “holes” allowing the immune system to overlook viruses like HIV or cancers. He collected data showing that patients who lived the longest, whether they had cancer or not, were the ones with the most robust immune system: the highest IgG level, and the greatest number of natural killer cells. He founded a biotech company, Immunogenetics, to exploit this observation.  He studied T cell involvement in Type 1 diabetes mellitus, experimental autoimmune encephalitis (Dr. Byron Waksman’s favorite experimental model), chronic active hepatitis (Dr. Edmond Yunis), and T cell suppression by HIV. He was always open to novel ideas, and wrote pioneering papers on circadian rhythms in natural killer cells, dietary effects on T cells and NK cells, and psychological stress and natural killer cell activity (psychoneuroimmunology).  It is fair to say that the work of Dr. Williams was fundamental in enabling the current revolution in immuno-oncology. CAR-T therapy, chimeric antigen receptor T cell treatment, is a direct result of his work in Dr. Benacerraf’s lab showing the involvement of MHC genes on T cells that engage tumor antigens.  

Williams was known affectionately by his respectful and appreciative patients as “Doc Mike” and he was trusted completely and the patients knew they could count on him. Williams is one of the very few oncologists who was still treating patients with metastatic Stage IV disease decades later and has many Stage IV cancer patients in complete remission.  A colleague could ask a question, then receive a didactic lecture and then current references for them to read.  He was so current in his studies and evolving medical information that when it came time for his renewal of medical oncology board certification, he passed without studying.

Williams will be sadly missed by all those privileged to have known him. The sadness is tempered by memories of his humor, joy of living, vital energy in all his endeavors, and his basic decency.  He is survived by his beloved wife of 26 years, Ellen Williams (as he affectionately called her Ellen, my sweetheart Ellen), and his beloved daughters Lizzi, Mandee, Mel, and Kim.  In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to First Baptist Church of Augusta, 310 Pearl Street, Augusta, AR 72006.

—Submitted by the family.