Learn more about Dr. Morosini
Deborah Morosini, M.D. is a doctor from a doctor’s family; both her father and grandfather were physicians before her. Dr. Morosini is a research pathologist. She is the Principal Pathologist for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, where she works in research and development of cancer drugs.
Dr. Monosini is also a board member and spokeswoman for the Lung Cancer Alliance and the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, both nonprofit organizations that are wholly devoted to the issue of lung cancer.
Why She Became a Lung Cancer Advocate
Because she is a physician, Dr. Morosini understood what it meant when her little sister Dana Reeve, wife of actor Christopher Reeve, was diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer. But nothing in her medical training prepared her for the emotional impact of losing her mother to cancer in 2005 and then losing her sister, who never smoked, to lung cancer in 2006.
Dr. Morosini had seen the courage, grace and determination her sister showed when her husband, Christopher Reeve, was paralyzed after a riding accident. Dana Reeve and her husband turned that tragedy into a cause: to fight for funding, awareness and a cure for spinal cord injury. And in the wake of her sister’s tragic death, just seven months after her diagnosis, Dr. Morosini took up the fight against lung cancer in her sister’s honor.
As she explained in a speech on the first anniversary of her sister’s death, “it is my way of honoring her, and all of those affected by lung cancer, to make this now my life work—to speak for the Lung Cancer Alliance, to raise a loud voice for lung cancer research and support, and to carry on her legacy of strength and compassion. In my work as a research physician, and now as a spokeswoman for LCA, I owe Dana, and you, this future. It is most surely what she would have wanted.”
The Education that Prepared Her To Be a Lung Cancer Advocate
Dr. Morosini earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College. Before attending medical school, Dr. Morosini earned an MSW from NYU School of Social Work, a step that helped prepare her for her roles both as a doctor and an advocate. Premedical studies at Columbia University followed.
In 1997, Dr. Morosini graduated from Boston University School of Medicine. Her brother-in-law Christopher Reeve was the speaker at her commencement. She was chief resident at Boston Medical Center, where she completed a residency in pathology.
Dr. Morosini’s background, both personal and professional, have made her an ideal spokeswoman in the fight against lung cancer, which kills more Americans each year than the next four most deadly cancers combined. See More Facts about Lung Cancer and Asbestos.
