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Congressional Daily Record
This section is a tribute, commemoration, or district-facing statement. It mentions members such as Jamie Ben Raskin. Extensions of Remarks are statements submitted for the official record, even if they were not spoken live on the floor.
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September 1, 2026
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Extensions of Remarks
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Download official Extensions PDFReturn to issue contextHON. JAMIE RASKIN
of maryland
in the house of representatives
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to wish my constituent, Dr. Irwin Arias—Win, as he is known to his friends—a very happy 100th birthday. And what a century it has been. Dr. Arias is one of the world's leading experts on the human liver. He has had a dazzling career as one of the world's most accomplished medical researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Arias is also a beloved mentor, teacher, friend, husband, father and grandfather. I am proud to recognize his extraordinary life during this centennial milestone and express my gratitude for the lifesaving contributions that he has made to medicine.
Dr. Arias was born in Rockville, New York in 1926. His first scientific research experience was a high school fellowship tied to the 1939 World's Fair, when he designed experiments to study light transmission in plastics. This fellowship ignited Dr. Arias's passion for science and exposed him to brilliant peers who would go on to their own impressive scientific careers. In college, Dr. Arias enlisted in the Navy as part of the Nation's mobilization to defeat fascism during World War II. He managed to complete his service while taking classes at Harvard College. He graduated from Harvard in 1946 and, urged on by his academic advisors and mentors, applied to medical school. After graduating medical school at the State University of New York, Dr. Arias spent six years as an intern and resident at Boston City Hospital.
In Boston, Dr. Arias began treating patients suffering from a variety of liver conditions and spent two years researching liver pathology. His work attracted the notice of Dr. Irving London, the founding Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who invited Dr. Arias to become one of the first assistant professors for the new medical school. At Albert Einstein, Dr. Arias went on to lead interdisciplinary treatment teams of doctors and scientists who worked together to provide innovative care to their patients. He formalized this approach within the Marion Bessin Liver Research Center, which he founded in 1974, and which became the first liver research institution to be supported by NIH. To this day, the Center supports interdisciplinary teams and mentors new generations of brilliant researchers dedicated to liver treatment.
Dr. Arias built on this experience as he helped establish the Department of Physiology within the Tufts University School of Medicine. At Tufts, Dr. Arias continued to mentor generations of medical students and researchers and urged them to see the overall human and social context of their studies. He set up courses that taught physiology students to think of their patients first before their medical problems. Wherever he could, Dr. Arias emphasized experiential learning with multidisciplinary teams and set up new courses for medical students and researchers to collaborate on real problems. Dr. Arias's pedagogy attracted national attention, and he brought this novel approach to NIH by setting up the Demystifying Medicine program with his colleague, Dr. Ruth Kirschstein. To this day, the Demystifying Medicine series pushes the boundaries of translational research—bridging important gaps between scientific research and medical practice—and has become a global model for the international scientific community.
research and collaboration, Dr. Arias is a formidable researcher in his own right. During his research career, he and his collaborators have discovered mechanisms of inheritable jaundice, learned how ABC transporters mediate bile transport, and identified the proteins that regulate hepatocyte polarization, mitochondrial fusion, ATP production and bile transporters. Dr. Arias has also mentored generations of young researchers and medical students at NIH, including Dr. Anthony Fauci. A lifelong teacher and scientist, Dr. Arias continues to coordinate the Demystifying Medicine program and operate a lab at NIH.
Dr. Arias is the loving husband of Dr. Lyuba Varticovski, beloved brother of Joan Gordon, loving father of Jonathan, Linda, Wendy, Nancy and Diana and the devoted grandfather of Daniel, Rick, Alex, Beau, Madeline, Sarah, Noah, Henry and Sofia. He is an avid traveler and fitness enthusiast. I am proud to salute my constituent Dr. Arias for his outstanding contributions to science and society and wish him a happy 100th birthday.