Ramzi S. Cotran, a longtime Harvard Medical School (HMS) professor and internationally recognized expert in pathology, died of cancer at his Brookline home last Monday. He was 67.

Cotran was professor of pathology at HMS and chair of the pathology department of both the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Children's Hospital in Boston. He is perhaps best known for being the senior writer of Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease since 1979.

"Everyone around the world reads [the textbook] as a medical student," said HMS Professor of Pathology Christopher D.M. Fletcher.

Cotran authored more than 180 research papers and led many national and international professional organizations in pathology and nephrology.

Janina A. Longtine, a student and colleague of Cotran, said his specialties were experimental vascular biology and kidney pathology.

Fletcher said that Cotran not only had an unusual grasp of the broad field of pathology, but also a full knowledge of each of his roles in that field.

"He was extraordinary as a clinician, as a teacher, as a researcher," Fletcher said.

Under Cotran's guidance since 1974, the pathology department at Brigham and Women's grew from modest origins to, in Longtine's words, "what we would call the best in the country," an improvement which she attributed to Cotran's efforts towards developing "good communication between clinicians and scientists."