by Elaine Durbach
NJJN Bureau Chief/Central

July 23, 2009

As a student, when he was praised for thinking “outside of the box,” Rabbi Dr. Robert Shorr’s response was, “What box?”

His outlook is just as wide open as he speaks now, at 55, about the innovative anti-cancer drug his company is developing. Shorr, who has Orthodox rabbinical ordination as well as a PhD in biochemistry, is the founder and CEO of Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals — as well as a number of other companies.

The company’s new drug, CPI-613, works by masquerading as a substance needed by pancreatic and other cancer cells; instead it kills them — but has no effect on healthy cells. The drug is currently undergoing clinical trials to determine its efficacy.

Shorr doesn’t claim the drug “cures” cancer. “I would love to achieve a cure for cancer, but if we can make the disease more manageable and help someone continue to lead a productive life, that’s a worthwhile goal,” he said.

Shorr, who has been involved with a number of other medical breakthroughs, gives full credit to his colleagues who developed the new approach, known as Altered Energy Metabolism Directed technology, but he gives ultimate credit to a higher source. “Hashem,” he said, has graced him with the scientific and entrepreneurial gifts needed to develop products that ease suffering. The only achievement for which he credits himself is his Torah learning.

He is as interested in “natural” remedies as allopathic ones, and his companies produce both. “My only concern is whether something works and is good for the patient,” he said.

Shorr hasn’t had cancer himself but he does know what it feels like to be given a “death sentence.” Seven years ago, he sat across the desk from a doctor and was told the benign tumors on his spine would either kill or cripple him. He was also diagnosed with Sjogren’s Syndrome, an autoimmune disease. “I told the doctor I was happy to meet Hashem, but I wanted him to come here,” he said.

Some rabbis told him about a holistic doctor in Brooklyn, who showed him that he was allergic to high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and yeast - “everything that tastes good,” he said. He cut them out, gradually got into more exercise, and now – 100 lbs lighter – he said he feels as strong and healthy as he did at 18.

As he talked on the telephone with NJ Jewish News recently, his three grandchildren could be heard in the background, playing with his dogs. Shorr explained that three of his four grown children happened to be staying with him and his wife, Pearl, in their home in Edison, in various stages of transition to new homes.

He was home that day prior to a meeting in Manhattan but usually he works at the company offices and laboratories in Cranbury. It also has premises in Stony Brook, NY. At work, he fits in at least two Torah learning sessions on the phone with his study partners.

On Sundays, Shorr teaches students of various ages at his home, and he is busy expanding the house to accommodate a beis midrash or study center.

Shorr grew up speaking Portuguese, as well as Yiddish and English, because his mother came from Brazil and the family lived there for a while when he was very young. His father was a well respected rocket scientist, and his work took the family from one part of the country to another — as well as to other countries.

The family was Conservative and intensely committed to spiritual values, but they were not very observant, he said. He found that inconsistent with the teaching he heard in synagogue, and it bothered him from an early age.

Despite all the moving, Shorr finished high school 18 months ahead of schedule, but he was regarded as emotionally troubled. At 16, he found college — SUNY Buffalo — academically unchallenging and socially overwhelming. His grades declined. He says one adviser told him he should think about working in a supermarket. He did for a while, and also worked as a short-order cook, a bartender, and as a guitarist with a rock band.

Then he was introduced by a matchmaker to Pearl. From that meeting on, his studies were on an upward trajectory. The young couple went to London for three years at the behest of one of Shorr’s professors. Pearl halted her own studies and worked as a journalist to pay their bills, while he earned his doctorate and diploma in biochemistry at the University of London Imperial College of Science and Technology.

When the couple settled in Philadelphia, Shorr began studying Torah. He studied with rabbis there and in Lakewood and, he said, received his ordination at a yeshiva with a presence in Lakewood and Jerusalem. “When our oldest children were born, I felt very strongly that you can’t teach what you don’t know,” he recalled.

He studied Hebrew, Aramaic, and Talmud. Along the way, he took the ordination test of the Israeli rabbinate. He became increasingly observant but — saying he is averse to constricting definitions — declines to limit himself to any one denomination or congregation. He and his family belong to a few synagogues, and he davens with various minyanim.

When his scientific and religious studies conflict, Shorr attributes the confusion to his own inability to understand, not to any failing in the ancient texts.

“I believe we’re likely to find absolute truths in the Torah long before we find them in science,” he said.

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