Bruce Wixson Calnek

Bruce Wixson Calnek died on July 21, 2026.

He was born on January 29, 1932, in Manchester, New York, to the late Lucile and Otto Calnek and was raised in Shortsville and Clifton Springs, New York. In 1947, the family moved to Ithaca, New York. He graduated from Ithaca High School in 1949 and enrolled at Cornell University, where he completed a two-year pre-veterinary course in the College of Agriculture followed by four years in the College of Veterinary Medicine. He received his DVM degree in 1955 and earned a Master of Science degree at the same institution in 1956. His interest in research on poultry diseases began while he was still in high school, working part-time in a Cornell research laboratory on Snyder Hill beginning at age 16.

While a student, he worked part-time at Tompkins County Hospital performing emergency laboratory work on nights and weekends. There he met a young dietitian, Mary Jeanne Trudeau. They were married on July 5, 1954, beginning a long and loving marriage.

After one year of employment at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine as an Acting Assistant Professor, he accepted an appointment as an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. During four years there, he studied a chicken disease that is the avian equivalent of poliomyelitis in humans. He unraveled the pathogenesis of the disease and developed a highly successful oral vaccine that is still used worldwide.

He returned to Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine in September 1961 as an Associate Professor with major responsibility for research on poultry diseases and a minor commitment to extension activities. Although he worked on a number of viral diseases in chickens, his major contributions were in the field of neoplastic diseases, first on lymphoid leukosis and later on, Marek’s disease, which at the time was responsible for devastating losses in chicken flocks.

He discovered the means by which the responsible herpesvirus spread from bird to bird through feather dander, the only source of infectious virus. He led successful teams of colleagues and graduate students in establishing the sequence of events from infection to tumor development. When a vaccine to the virus was developed by a former graduate student, he discovered a method for extracting the highly cell-associated virus from infected tissue cultures to permit development of a freeze-dried vaccine and, together with a graduate student, developed another vaccine against the disease. Both projects resulted in patents.

The extraction method was an important step in the early development of the human chicken pox vaccine and, because it was the only successful method for obtaining infectious cell-free virus from Marek’s disease virus-infected cells, it led to research that definitively proved for the first time in any species that a herpesvirus could cause cancer.

In addition to numerous grants from commercial and noncommercial sources, he received 28 years of continuous funding from the National Cancer Institute supporting his research on tumors in chickens. During his career, he published more than 160 scientific papers and book chapters.

Dr. Calnek was promoted to Full Professor in 1968 and, after serving as Acting Chairman for one year, was appointed Chairman of the Department of Avian and Aquatic Animal Medicine in 1976. He remained in that position until his retirement in 1995, when he was named Emeritus Professor.

In 1993, he was named the College’s first Rudolph J. and Katherine L. Steffen Professor of Veterinary Medicine. In addition to his extensive research program, he chaired the College Planning Committee, overseeing planning for a $90 million expansion of facilities completed in the mid-1990s.

His professional service included a four-year appointment to the Virology Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, membership on numerous national and international organizations and committees related to avian medicine, serving as Associate Editor and later Editor-in-Chief for five editions of Diseases of Poultry, and serving as President of the American Association of Avian Pathologists.

He received many national and international honors and awards and delivered invited lectures throughout the world, including in Mexico, Spain, Italy, England, Argentina, Australia, Japan, China, Canada, and Hungary. The University Faculty in Budapest awarded him the Josef Marek Commemorative Medal for Research Achievements, one of only four non-Hungarians to receive the honor. He was also an inaugural inductee into both the American Association of Avian Pathologists Hall of Honor and the World Veterinary Poultry Association Hall of Honor.

Outside of his professional career, Dr. Calnek enjoyed woodworking with a special interest in Shaker-style furniture. Clock-making became his primary hobby beginning in the mid-1990s, and in 2000 he became a member of Handwork, a craft cooperative with a store in Ithaca, New York.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Jeanne Calnek, with whom he celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2014; their two sons, David and Douglas (Lynn); six grandchildren, Aaron, Samantha, Jennifer, Charlotte, Rachel, and Tucker; four great-grandchildren: Harper, Jett, Dylan, and Vivian; his brother, Edward (Sue); and two sisters, Beatrice and Marjorie (Randy Ingham).

At his request, there will be no services. Donations in his memory may be made to the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine Class of 1955 Scholarship or to a charity of your choice.