In the public eye, M. Judah Folkman was the researcher who James Watson declared would cure cancer within two years — in 1998. While Dr. Folkman, a professor of pediatric surgery and of anatomy and cellular biology at Harvard Medical School, didn’t accomplish that feat, his research opened up a new field of study and led to treatments for cancer and other diseases. He died on Monday of a heart attack, at age 74.

He was a leader in studying angiogenesis, the process by which tumor cells grow blood vessels. He proposed in the 1970s that cancer could be stopped by cutting off its blood supply. Today, more than 10 inhibitors of angiogenesis are on the market as drugs to treat cancer, macular degeneration, and other diseases, and dozens of other angiogenesis inhibitors are in clinical trials. According to James Mandell, president and chief executive of Children’s Hospital Boston, where Dr. Folkman directed the vascular-biology program, more than 1,000 labs now study angiogenesis. —Lila Guterman