In Memoriam

Martha was an internationally recognized expert in the use of genetic toxicology data in chemical hazard identification and mode of action, particularly as they relate to cancer risk assessment. She worked for 23 years with the US Environmental Protection Agency in North Carolina, 13 years with the US Food and Drug Administration's National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Arkansas, and 6 years at Ramboll US Corporation, Little Rock, Arkansas. She more recently founded her own toxicology consulting firm. Martha was a member of the Society of Toxicology, the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society, the Genetic Toxicology Association, and the European Environmental Mutagen Society. She received the Genetic Toxicology Association Excellence in Science Award in 2011. Martha has published more than 130 journal articles, papers and chapters. More importantly, Martha was a friend to budding scientists from around the world, particularly from China. She sponsored many students from abroad to study in her lab in Arkansas

Samuel H. Wilson, Jr., M.D. passed away quietly in his home in Chapel Hill, NC on Friday, April 23, 2021. He was the son of Samuel H. Wilson, Sr. and Sue Whatley Wilson. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Denver in 1961 and his Medical Degree from Harvard in 1968. He served his country as a Captain in the U.S. Public Health Service.

Dieter was internationally renowned, publishing more than 150 publications and holding five patents. He served on review panels for numerous national and international agencies. He was the recipient of Visiting Professorships in Paris and in Rome, and had an appointment to the Commission for the National Agency for Evaluation of Candidates of Professor and Associate Professor for the Italian Ministry for Education, Universities, and Research in Italy.

Dieter had become a regular at EMGS meetings over the last few years, taking an active role in its governance. For example, he served as the Chair of the Awards and Honors Committee.

Dieter was always generous with his time and will be missed by his many friends and colleagues in EMGS.

Dieter leaves behind a wife, Carole and three sons, Aaron, Jordan, and Luke.

Dr. William Morgan, an eminent scientist and the Director of Radiation Biology and Biophysics in the Biological Sciences Division of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, died Friday evening, November 13th, 2015, at the Kadlec Medical Center near his home in Richland, Washington of pulmonary embolism.  He was 62.

Dr. Morgan, or Bill to many of his friends, was a leading figure in the study of the biological effects of ionizing radiation and had a distinguished career that spanned over 35 years.  Born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, Bill received his bachelor degree in botany and his master and doctoral degree in cytogenetics from the University of Canterbury.  After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Bill joined the faculty there and later obtained a joint appointment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in 1995. In 1999, he left California to become Director of the Radiation Oncology Research Laboratory at the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore. In 2008, Bill moved to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and took on his leadership role until his untimely death. He held joint appointments in the Department of Radiation Oncology at both Oregon Health Science University and the University of Washington.

Dr. Morgan’s research focused on elucidating the long-term biological effects of ioni

zing radiation and, more specifically, on the study of low dose effects on human health. He was highly regarded by his peers and had received many awards and recognitions. He served on many national and international advisory boards , including chairman of subcommittee C of the National Cancer Institute Scientific Review Group (1998–2003); National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (2002–2014); International Commission on Radiological Protection and chaired Committee 1 (2005 onward); European Community Consortium on Non-targeted Effects of Ionizing Radiation (2006–2011); United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (2003 onward). Dr. Morgan was conferred with an honorary D.Sc. degree from his Alma mater in 2003 and was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010.

He was the former executive editor of the journal Mutagenesis and was on the editorial board of Radiation Research, Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis, Journal of Radiation Research, and Mutation Research. He has authored and co-authored close to 200 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Another major contribution of Dr. Morgan to the scientific community was his tireless advocacy for radiation research, and his strong support and mentorship to students and junior faculty. He was one of the most popular senior investigators at the Scholar-in-Training gathering at the annual Radiation Research Society meeting. His encouragement, support and career advice to many in the scientific community will be forever appreciated and missed.

Dr. Frederick Joseph de Serres Jr., co-founder of the Environmental Mutagen Society, died Sunday, December 21 at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was the third President of the Society, serving from 1974 to 1976. He received the EMS/EMGS Award in 1979 in recognition of his outstanding research contributions in the area of environmental mutagenesis.

Jack B. Bishop, PhD, said of Dr. de Serres, “our field of environmental mutagenesis has lost another of its GIANTS. Fred's contributions have been legendary. He will be greatly missed.”

Dr. de Serres was one of the major movers of the Society into the “Mutation causes Cancer” field which stimulated a major growth spurt for the Society during the late 1970’s early 1980’s. He developed an Ad-3 mutation test in Neurospora that was one of the in-vitro tests used in detection of environmental mutagens. During the late 1970’s and the 1980’s he organized, secured funding for, and oversaw the conduct of three large international collaborative studies involving dozens of leading laboratories from around the world. These studies were conducted to evaluate the performance of the many short term in vitro and in vivo genetic toxicity tests proposed to identify the carcinogenic potential of environmental chemicals.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology/Chemistry from Tufts University in 1951. He completed a predoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, and then his Masters and PhD degrees in Genetics/Botany from Yale University in 1953 and 1955 respectively. Fred moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1955 as a postdoctoral research associate in the Biology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) and remained at Oak Ridge as a research scientist for the next 15 years. In 1972, Dr. de Serres was offered a position as Laboratory Chief of Environmental Mutagenesis in the intramural research program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. He was involved in several international collaborative scientific efforts, including the US—USSR Environmental Protection Agreement and the US—Japan Cooperative Medical Sciences program.

In 1976, he received the NIH Director’s Award, the highest award given by the National Institutes of Health, based on his work in developing an environmental mutagenesis program to study the potential mutant effects of agents found in the environment. He was cited for his “leadership and guidance” in developing cooperative efforts which have “broadened the scope and influence of mutagenic testing and research worldwide.” He then became the associate director for genetics at NIEHS for the next ten years. In 1986 he became the Director of the Center for Life Sciences and Toxicology at Research Triangle Institute in which he oversaw programs involving mammalian mutagenesis, teratology, reproductive toxicology, and in vitro toxicology. In his later years, after his own diagnosis of a genetic disease, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, he became very active in the Alpha—1 Foundation and began performing epidemiologic research to describe the prevalence of this disorder worldwide. He continued to write peer reviewed scientific papers into his early 80’s, authoring almost 500 contributions to the scientific literature.

Dr. de Serres was a man of many interests and talents. He loved trying new foods on his international travels and bringing these experiences home to his family. He and his wife, Christine, shared a love of cooking and botany. They were always creating and executing the next great meal, and were able to express their love of botany through constant gardening and landscaping of their homes in Oak Ridge and Chapel Hill. He loved spending time with his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

He is survived by his son Mark de Serres and wife Suzan Council de Serres of Chapel Hill; son Paul C. de Serres of Durham; son David de Serres of Raleigh; daughter-in-law Barbara Egan de Serres of Raleigh; daughter Dr. Lianne de Serres McKhann and husband Dr. Guy McKhann of Bronxville, New York, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He is pre-deceased by his son, Jonathan F. de Serres, who died in 1996, and his wife Christine, who died in 2008. 

Thomas A. Cebula, a lauded microbiologist who helped develop ways to speed up the identification of dangerous pathogens and taught as a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University, died Wednesday at Union Memorial Hospital following a heart attack. He was 67.

Dr. Cebula’s research work, most recently as chief science officer for Rockville-based CosmosID, helped quicken diagnosis and treatment of disease.

In his field, “he was one of the top people,” said Maurice Bessman, a biology professor at Hopkins who was teaching there when Dr. Cebula received his doctorate in 1974 and remained friends with him. “He was involved in developing algorithms which could take a culture of bacteria and quickly determine which one of the bacteria was involved in the infection. Instead of taking days for a diagnosis, they could do a diagnosis right after they did a DNA analysis of it, which they could do in a couple of hours.”

A native of Plymouth, PA, Dr. Cebula graduated from Wilkes University in nearby Wilkes-Barre. He later earned his Ph.D. at Hopkins and completed his post-graduate work there as a National Cancer Institute fellow and a microbiology research fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Dr. Cebula took to his career path early, said his wife of 38 years, the former Deborah Roach. “He took a chemistry course in high school and fell in love with it, and never looked back,” she said.

Before starting work at CosmosID in 2010, Dr. Cebula was director of the Office of Applied Research and Safety Assessment for the US Food and Drug Administration.

“He did an awful lot of important work at the FDA on determining what caused bacteria to become virulent,” Dr. Bessman said. He also studied why some bacteria become resistant to antibiotics and other drugs, focusing on the genetic mutations that lead to such resistance. “His work was unimpeachable,” Dr. Bessman said.

As important as his research was to him, Dr. Cebula felt teaching and helping the public understand science were equally important. This past spring, he taught a section of one of his most popular courses, a freshman seminar on “Microbes in the Media” that looked at scientific issues in the news. “He felt it was really important to prime the pump,” his wife said, “to make sure that students were broadly trained.”

Among those he influenced through his work at Hopkins was his niece and goddaughter, Rebecca Ress, who graduated in 2011 with a degree in public health. Although she never took a class with him, some of her sorority sisters did, and savored the experience.

“He was such an interesting man,” Ms. Ress said, “and he had so much to share. He was a great mentor.”

Dr. Cebula was also a visiting professor at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Genome Sciences. Among his many honors, he was an American Academy of Microbiology fellow, a Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars elected fellow and the recipient of a Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for protecting the health of the American public.

As a true Hopkins alum, Dr. Cebula was also a big-time lacrosse fan—“a really rabid fan,” according to his wife. When each of his nieces and nephews reached their first communion, he gave them a lacrosse stick as a present. And his family members speak with a mix of awe and glee about the “Blue Jay Drink” he would serve them before games. The exact recipe is a closely guarded family secret, his niece said—although she allowed that there was tequila in it.

In addition to their home in Roland Park, the family owned a house by Lewis Bay on Cape Cod—a spot that became an important refuge for her husband, Mrs. Cebula said. “That&rsqo;s where he really fell apart and relaxed,” she said.

In addition to his wife, Dr. Cebula is survived by his daughter, Elizabeth Cebula, of Mount Washington, and two sisters, Ann Harding, of Telford, PA, and Helen Cebula, of Plymouth, PA.

Our esteemed colleague, John Hays, Professor of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at Oregon State University, passed away at age 76 in Corvallis. John was a lifelong nonsmoker and avid sportsman, but in a cynical twist of fate, he learned only a year ago that he was afflicted with stage 4 lung adenocarcinoma. He was not only an imaginative and rigorous research scientist, but also a very warm, open and compassionate human being.

John graduated in 1954 from Monrovia High School. He turned down a scholarship to Stanford University to spend two years at Deep Springs, a unique college on a ranch near Bishop, California, where he was trained in the liberal arts; while milking cows, riding horses to round up cattle and participating in student government. After completing a major in Chemistry and Mathematics at the University of New Mexico, John served three years in the US Navy. He then carried out graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego, for a doctorate in Physical Chemistry in 1967, before taking a postdoc at Johns Hopkins University. John joined the faculty at the University of Maryland, rising through the academic ranks from Assistant Professor to Professor of Chemistry in 1982. He fulfilled his long-term desire to return to the West in 1987, to assume the Chairmanship of the Department of Agricultural Chemistry (Now, Environmental and Molecular Toxicology) at Oregon State University. John’s early research on lactose metabolism in gram-positive bacteria shifted abruptly to recombination in phage lambda, specifically on the role of DNA lesions in the induction of recombination. His move to Corvallis also engendered a shift toward research on DNA repair and mutagenesis in a variety of eukaryotic models including Xenopus laevis, mammalian cells and Arabidopsis thaliana. John is particularly well known for his elegant series of studies on the coupling between recognition of base mispairing and excision in the DNA mismatch repair pathway in mammalian cells.

John Hays was an invited speaker and session chair for many scientific conferences, particularly Gordon Conferences, in which he was appreciated as one of the most articulate discussants. He Chaired the 2008 Gordon Conference on DNA damage, Mutation and Cancer in Ventura, California; a memorial tribute in his honor will be offered at the March 2014 Conference in that series.

John was elected Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science in 2001. He also leaves his mark in higher education, having trained many students and serving as one of the founding fathers of the BioResource Research (BRR) program at Oregon State University. We will treasure our memories of the collegial times we shared with John as well as many lively and intense scientific discussions. In recognition of his achievements as a scientist and teacher, the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology has established the John and Judy Hays Scholarship Fund for Undergraduate Research Training. Contributions to this fund should be made payable to the .Agricultural Research Foundation. at 1600 SW Western Blvd., Ste. 320, Corvallis, OR 97333.

~Philip Hanawalt, Niels de Wind, and Andrew Buermeyer

A genetic toxicology CRO pioneer, died on September 4, 2012, at his McCormick, SC home after a two-year struggle with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Steve received a BS in biology and chemistry from Morehead State University in Kentucky in 1967 and a PhD in microbiology from Oregon State University in 1973. He married his high school sweetheart Mary Ruth Thompson Haworth in 1965; they celebrated 47 years of marriage in July 2012. Steve was a long-time member and strong supporter of EMS (now EMGS), and also a founding member of the Genetic Toxicology Association in the 1970s, which at that time focused on applied genetic toxicology in the mid-Atlantic area. After a two-year stint at Trenton State College, Steve moved to the Washington area where he was employed by Microbiological Associates/Hazelton/Covance (except for a short sojourn in Utah working for a minerals firm). Steve retired from his executive position at Covance a few years ago to enjoy golfing, fishing, and time with his family. He will be remembered for his enthusiasm, optimism, great sense of humor, and that wonderful, short-lived 70s Afro.

 

He also chaired another Academy committee in the 1990s that helped legitimize the use of DNA testing by the courts. He received the EMGS Award in 1988. As the first Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Mutagenesis (now Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis), Dr. Seymour Abrahamson noted, “When the National Academy of Sciences wanted an exemplary report lucidly written and completed on time, it always called on Jim to chair it.” In 2004, Dr. Crow was a key member of the Society’s Germ-Cell workshop held at the Jackson Lab in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a photo of him at this workshop is shown on the right. Dr. Crow was a gentleman, an outstanding scientist and mentor, and a major figure in genetics; EMGS was all the richer for his involvement and commitment to environmental mutagenesis.

William Frederick Grant, Emeritus Professor of McGill University, Plant Science, Genetics, established the Genetics lab at the Macdonald College Campus in 1956 since when he has been active in cytogenetic research—the study of inheritance in relation to the structure and function of chromosomes—in particular, the study of higher plants as a means of detecting and monitoring atmospheric mutagens responsible for cancer, leukaemia, infant mortality and genetic injury in humans—for which he has won wide acclaim.

In 2000, McMaster University awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Science for his outstanding contributions in “plant cytogenetics, biosystematics and mutagenesis.”

Bill died October 6, 2011, of congestive heart failure while in long-term care at the Montreal Chest Institute.

John Stanley Wassom of Rockwood completed the final chapter of his life story on February 21, 2010, at 68 years of age. His enjoyment of life, laughter, and people will be sorely missed by his large extended family and his wide circle of friends and colleagues. He was a great lover of reading and collector of books, especially those on science and the Civil War.

John was born in Spring City on May 1, 1941, as the son of the late Jesse and Hazel Wassom and remained a lifelong resident of East Tennessee. In grammar school, he developed a keen interest in science. He graduated from Spring City High School in 1959 and received the Bachelor of Science degree in biological sciences from Tennessee Technological University in 1963. He later completed graduate courses in genetics at the University of Tennessee School of Biomedical Sciences at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After college graduation, he served in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps from 1963 to 1965.

John was a scientist and administrator for more than 38 years at ORNL, where his work included genetic toxicology, mammalian genetics, and computational chemistry. He was director of the Environmental Mutagen and Teratogen Information Centers (EMIC and ETIC) supported by the National Institutes of Health. The EMIC group was instrumental in developing GENE-TOX, the Environmental Protection Agency’s most critically reviewed and evaluated toxicology database that contained genetic test results on more than 3,000 chemicals. John was a founding member of the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society (EMGS) and originator of DOE’s Low-Dose Radiation Research Program website and the Human Genome News. HGN was distributed worldwide and later expanded to a public technical communication and educational support website for the Human Genome Program. After retirement from ORNL in 2003, John joined the staff of YAHSGS and, later, Summitec Corporation.

John was highly respected by colleagues all over the world for his expertise in genetic toxicology and his visionary approaches to bioinformation management, and most especially, for the environmental toxicology information services he and his staff provided to the genetic toxicology community. He and his staff received the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society's Alexander Hollaender Award for contributions made to the field of genetic toxicology and to the goals and mission of the Society and participated in 104 peer-reviewed publications. His interest in and concern about environmental chemicals, combined with his vision for the rapid dissemination of information to researchers and health professionals, was recognized as an early leader in modern information science. He served on the editorial board of Mutation Research from 1976 to 1980 and on its board of managing editors from 1981 to 2000. John also served on a number of working groups, including those appointed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer from 1972 to 1985 and the International Committee for Protection Against Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens from 1972 to 1986.

His colleagues at EMIC and ETIC and within the EMGS and birth defects scientific communities dearly loved John for his humility and kindness, as well as his wit and humor. He recently exhibited these qualities in an invited talk at the EMGS 40th Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, where he described for the audience of distinguished scientists the beginnings of EMGS and told anecdotes about his famous mentor, Dr. Alexander Hollaender, EMGS founder and early director of ORNL.

John was also active within his community, where he and his wife, Judy Owings Wassom, participated in the beautification of Rockwood and helped to organize and host annual tours of the city’s historic homes through Rockwood 2000. These tours included reenactments of events from the Civil War, during which John enjoyed portraying Union General John T. Wilder, who settled in East Tennessee after the war. Wilder was the founders of Rockwood and the Roane Iron Company. John served on the Rockwood Housing Authority Board for 30 years and as chairman of the Rockwood Industrial Board for many years. He took office as Rockwood City Councilman in July 2009 and served on the Rockwood Electric Utility Board and the Airport Steering Committee.

Although he will be remembered for substantial contributions to his scientific field, his most valued contribution has been as a loving husband to Judy, father to Zoe’, father-in-law to J.J., and grandfather to Jarrod, Joshua, Jackson, and Zoe’-Kate. He has loved and cared for every member of the Owings family as his own from the time he and Judy married and they have loved him as a son and brother. He has been their rock of strength and support through the years of joyous celebrations and deep tragedies. He has been our life coach and encourager helping us to find something to be grateful for and to laugh about regardless of the situation and celebrating our accomplishments, while rarely sharing his own. He was an active member of Rockwood United Methodist Church and he lived his faith daily.

He was preceded in death by his parents Jesse and Hazel Wassom and brother General Herbert Wassom. He is survived by his wife of 46 years, Judy Wassom; his daughter Zoe’ and son-in-law J.J. Neerman; grandchildren, Jarrod, Joshua, Jackson, and Zoe’-Kate Neerman all of Rockwood, TN; sister, Jackie and husband Don Hill of Chattanooga, TN; and many extended family members.

John Stanley Wassom will be remembered for his wisdom, compassion, humor, and unconditional love for family, friends, and colleagues.

Lars Ehrenberg, professor emeritus at Stockholm University, passed away in June 2005, a short time after his 84 th birthday. Ehrenberg’s main research fields were radiobiology and chemical carcinogenesis, where he was a pioneer and made numerous contributions of vast significance. His research was characterized by quantitative and interdisciplinary approaches at a fundamental level for understanding problems, e.g. with regard to cancer risk assessment of chemicals. The research in this area has rightly received international recognition. Ehrenberg’s research work has inspired many colleagues and has led to many new developments. He was a scientist with an unusually broad, yet deep knowledge. He grew up in Falun in Dalecarlia in Sweden where his father was a physician. From 1941 he studied at Lund University in the south of Sweden, while simultaneously, due to the ongoing war in Europe, he was drafted into military service in the north of Sweden. Although he could only spend little time in Lund he completed a B. Sci. in genetics, botany and mathematics in 1943. He then continued with studies in chemistry at Stockholm University, where he completed a Ph. Lic. in 1948, and in 1955 he presented his Dr Sci. thesis. In 1962, Stockholm University installed a special Chair of Radiobiology for him. Lars Ehrenberg’s broad scientific approach was founded in his early studies within cytology and botany, followed by studies in biochemistry. Among the works from the outset of his academic career are investigations of the hydrogen bond, and other phenomena concerned with chemical specificity, mechanisms of action and potency of local anaesthetics (1). Lars had a gift for telling stories, and many of the most colourful stories about his life as a scientist originated from the period he spent with the team of Nils Lo fgren studying local anaesthetics at the Institute of Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry in Stockholm. During his time in Lund, Lars Ehrenberg came in contact with the plant breeding group around A ke Gustafsson. Together with the plant breeders he introduced ionizing radiation as a means of increasing genetic variability for selective plant breeding. The work included comparison of different types of radiation with regard to mutagenic effectiveness and studies of action mechanisms. The work was carried out quantitatively, which, for instance, required that dosimetric methods were developed. In a research project with his brother, Anders Ehrenberg, and K. G. Zimmer, he demonstrated experimentally that free radicals are intermediates in the induction of biological radiation effects. At the stage when he had published nearly 50 scientific papers, most of them within radiobiology, he presented his doctoral thesis concerning the mechanism of action of ionizing radiation in plant seeds. In 1954 chemical mutagens were introduced in the plant mutation studies and compared with ionizing radiation, e.g. with regard to mutation spectra (2). Some alkylating agents were found to be far more efficient mutagens than ionizing radiation. This finding led Ehrenberg to present in 1959 a warning to the Swedish National Board of Health about mutagens and carcinogens in the environment. This was probably one of the first warnings of this kind. He now felt a responsibility to include the problem of risk assessment of environmental genotoxic agents in his research. The studies of biological effects of radiation and chemicals were carried out quantitatively, with definitions of concepts such as 'mutagenic efficiency' and 'mutagenic effectiveness', as well as a dose concept of genotoxic chemicals, which formed a basis for further work (3,4). The question about the true shape of the dose-response curves for mutation at very low doses was studied in sensitive plant systems (5). In studies aiming to find the properties that render an alkylating agent to be an efficient mutagen, alkylating agents were investigated with regard to reaction-kinetics (6). It was shown that the mutagenic potency could be described to a large extent by the reactivity towards nucleophilic centres with low nucleophilic strength, commensurate with the oxygens in DNA bases. By now, the research had progressed to the stage where the problems involved in risk assessment of mutagens/carcinogens could be identified (3). Lars Ehrenberg’s continuing work focussed mainly on improved methods and models for risk assessment of carcinogens. The development of methods was based on the experience from radiation biology and radiation protection philosophy. He suggested expressing the dose of mutagenic chemicals as radiation-dose equivalents, in order to obtain a unit useful for application in models for cancer risk estimation (3). This could be derived from the determination of the relative genotoxic potency, with ionizing radiation as a standard, in in vitro mutation tests (7). Another development, based on the identified needs for improved methods, was to measure in vivo doses of reactive chemicals/metabolites as their stable adducts to blood proteins, particularly haemoglobin. Along with the development of analytical methods, this approach has become an efficient tool in work aiming at cancer risk estimation. The usefulness of the method was shown already in 1978 in studies of in vivo doses in ethylene oxide-exposed workers. During the 1990s, the collective experience and developments from Lars Ehrenberg’s 50 years of scientific work resulted in the evaluation of risk models for chemical carcinogens (8). This work demonstrated that the relative cancer risk model used for ionizing radiation could be applied to animal cancer test data for chemical carcinogens (models: ethylene oxide, acrylamide and butadiene). This research, which is still ongoing, deeply engaged Ehrenberg, even when his younger colleagues and former students had taken over the responsibility. The developed methods and quantitative procedures introduced by Lars Ehrenberg have also led to a system that permits the detection of previously unknown exposure to carcinogens through measurement of haemoglobin adducts. This was, for instance, demonstrated in the case of the detection of a generally occurring, and relatively high, exposure to acrylamide, shown to originate from heated foods. In Lars’ final work as a co-author the circle was closed: in studies aiming at improved cancer risk estimation of the identified background exposure to acrylamide, the reaction-kinetics and relative genotoxic potency of glycidamide, the metabolite of acrylamide, were studied (9). This summary of Lars Ehrenberg’s work is far from complete. His unusually broad scientific interests and originality were reflected in about 400 publications, which, in addition to the main research lines summarized above, included mathematical, statistical, and epidemiological papers, and others concerning, for example, mechanisms of action of radioprotective agents. Furthermore, he was engaged as an expert by OECD, FN, FAO/WHO and worked as an advisor in Yugoslavia, India and Bangladesh. He was honoured by several Swedish and international awards, including a medal from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, as well as awards from the European Environmental Mutagenic Society and from the Collegium Ramazzini. He was inter alia a member of The Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm and Collegium Ramazzini. Lars Ehrenberg was inspiring to colleagues and students, freely sharing ideas and always showing interest in the work of junior scientists and students. As long as his health permitted, until the summer of 2004, he was at the laboratory 7 days a week, where he was appreciated for taking time for discussions with the students and as an unfailing source of knowledge, or just for telling some of his stories. Scientific discussion in small groups was what he enjoyed the most, much more than the larger and public arena. The scientific problems were always the first priority for him and political correctness was of little importance, which made him controversial now and then. Throughout the years Lars maintained a keen interest in botany, and for colleagues who accompanied him for a walk in a garden or forest, it became an exciting botanical excursion. Lars also had a great talent for languages — his English was masterly; he had a good knowledge and appreciation for classical music, literature and art. As someone once said, he was a renaissance person. He will be remembered as a charismatic scientist and person, and most fondly by the colleagues and students who experienced his generosity and good humour as a friend or mentor. His memory will live on in the minds of his wife Maria, his son Mans and daughter Zorica, and Maria’s son Felix, and all of us.

Dr. Lawrence Fishbein of Fairfax, VA. died suddenly at home on Wednesday, November 9, 2005.He was born October 27, 1923 in Brooklyn, NY the son of Isadore and Pauline Fishbein. An alumnus of Brooklyn College and Georgetown University, he had a long and distinguished scientific career in the fields of biochemistry, toxicology and environmental health. Most of his career was spent in the federal civil service at the National Institutes of Health and at the Food and Drug Administration, where he retired as Deputy Director of the National Center for Toxicological Research in 1987.

A prolific author and internationally recognized authority, he remained active as a consultant to the World Health Organization, participating in conferences worldwide until very shortly before his death. He was vital, independent and intellectually active to the very end of his life and will be mourned by friends and colleagues in many countries. He is survived by his devoted wife of 57 years, Rita; daughter, Janet (Joseph) Cresswell of Hazen, ND; daughter, Jill (Bruce) Harris of Scotch Plains, NJ and son, Kenneth Fishbein of Cockeysville, MD; grandchildren, David and Wendy Harris, as well as his twin brother, Leon Fishbein of New City, NY.

Fond Memories of Tony
by Ilse-Dore Adler, GSF-Institute of Mammalian Genetics, Neuherberg nr. Munich, Germany 

I was saddened by the news that my respected and greatly admired colleague Tony Carrano had passed away. I think he and I are about the same age. Although we never worked together directly, we always kept up with the progress of each other's work and I admired Tony especially when he took over the division leadership at LLNL after Mort Mendelson left on sabbatical.

I don't remember when I first met Tony but it must have been in the early or mid-seventies. When I was a postdoc with Sam Epstein at the Children's Cancer Research Foundation in 1970 and 1971, I attended all the early EMGS Meetings and collaborated with Grant Brewen, Warren Nichols and John Heddle. We were all young and enthusiastic cytogeneticists involved in the development of methods for mutagenicity testing of chemicals. In 1976, I spent half a year in Oak Ridge working with Grant Brewen and Julian Preston on the induction of chromosomal aberrations in female mouse oocytes by ionizing radiation. Grant Brewen and Tony knew each other quite well. I remember being at a meeting in San Francisco (I'm not sure which year), when all cytogeneticists joined in the bar and I think Grant introduced me to Tony then.

It was in Tokyo at the ICEM Meeting in 1981 when I found out that Tony was a fantastic dancer. After the Mutation Research Editorial Dinner, a bunch of us—I remember Tony, Julian Preston, David Scott from the UK, Gösta Zetterberg from Sweden, my colleague Angelika Neuhäuser-Klaus and I—went to a bar for a night cap. There was dancing but the men in our company were so involved in their scientific discussions that someone from another table asked me to dance. The next one to take me on to the dancing floor was Tony. What a difference, he was a wonderful dancer—I never forgot! And years later, when Tony came to visit in Munich at the GSF-National Research Center— upon an invitation by Udo Ehling—I was determined to arrange a night out in town to have another opportunity to dance with him. My friends Helga and Heinz Gonda, Tony and I set out, after dinner at my house, for a dancing tour in the nightclubs of Munich. But we were so inexperienced that we did not know where to go for ballroom dancing. We went from one club to another, but either they were too crowded, didn't have the right music or we didn't get in. Finally, we ended up in the ski bar of the Munich Hilton and found nice ballroom music, only a small group of people and a pleasant atmosphere. We danced, had drinks and enjoyed ourselves well into the early morning hours. When the music stopped, we asked for our cheques and we were told that we were guests; it turned out that we had joined a private wedding party. That night, Tony told me that he regularly practiced ball room dancing with his wife. Unfortunately, I never got another chance to dance with Tony. I treasure these great memories.

Notes from Sheila Galloway for "Memories Book" about Tony Carrano, 14, Dec 2005.
Tony Carrano's name was a highly respected one in the cytogenetics world when I came from Scotland to Shelly Wolff's lab at UCSF as a postdoc, in 1977. One of my best memories of those post-doc days was the day Tony invited some of us from the RadLab including myself and a visitor from then Soviet Armenia, Rouben Arutunyan, to visit the lab at Livermore. I had never visited a major atomic research lab or weapons lab before, and having to take my passport, and the armed guard needed because of Rouben, added a frisson of excitement. It was exciting to see around there and learn more about the flow cytometry, and Tony was an enthusiastic guide- I learned a lot. But the other delightful thing was that Tony and Liz invited us to their home where we had an idyllic time in the sunshine by the pool and I had my first quesadillas.

This was my introduction to the life in California I wasn't sure really existed- eating by the pool! It was typical of Tony the generous host and I enjoyed meeting Liz and their two young sons. I became involved in the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society from 1979 on, and saw Tony in action as an energetic and creative Treasurer who really saved the Society from bankruptcy. It was a tremendous gift to the Society that after all the hard work he put in as Treasurer for three years he then agreed to run for President, and I admired, and tried to learn from, his style of sure-handed, good natured leadership. "How shall we handle this?" he'd say. Then: "Here's what I think we should do....." and he'd put forward a sensible and practical plan where he'd clearly thought things out and helped set the direction, but still included others in the process and gave them a chance to contribute.

Tony's combination of being able to be firm but at the same time inclusive and humorous was rare and very effective. He enlisted people with his enthusiasm and like him we rolled up our sleeves and worked hard. Truly a fine leader. When I followed him as President-elect and then President he gave me the right amount of guidance, pointing out the key things I'd have to deal with and making sure I knew how early the planning had to happen for a seemingly distant meeting, and then leaving me to run things my own way. He also gave me encouragement and I'll never forget, after the annual EMGS meeting I organized was all over, Tony saying "The program was great; you should feel good about yourself". Coming from him, that was one of the best moments of positive reinforcement in my life! 

Through the years I knew him Tony's scientific expertise was broadening and expanding at a great rate from his origins in radiation biology and cytogenetics to the new world of genomics, and it was another great learning experience for me when Tony included me in the advisory board for the Biology division at Lawrence Livermore labs. The wide range of projects and the enthusiasm of the scientists were impressive, and once again Tony's leadership was evident, along with his gift for hospitality. The days of science were followed by evenings looking out on the lovely hills and enjoying California wine. So although I never got to work in the same lab, Tony was a big influence on me as I suspect he was on a great many others. He was somehow there in the background as someone I knew I could turn to for support. I miss him.

Marvin S. Legator, PhD, 79, passed away Monday July 11, 2005 at his residence. Dr. Legator was born in Chicago, Illinois on June 27, 1926. He received his PhD in Microbial Genetics and Biochemistry at the University of Illinois in 1951. He founded the Division of Environmental Toxicology in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1976 and served as its Director until 1999. He remained active in the department as a Professor until the time of his death. Previously he was a Professor of Genetics at Brown University, Chief of the Genetic Toxicology Branch of the Food and Drug Administration and toxicologist at the Shell Development Company. He and his wife Donna were married in 1960 and remained lovingly together for 44 years.

He was a pioneer in the development of research on the effects of toxic agents on the genetic apparatus, in developing methods for monitoring human populations for exposures to genetically toxic agents and in developing methods for assessing health effects in communities with exposures to toxic agents.

He was an elected member of the Collegium Ramazzini, an organization of highly respected researchers in the field of toxicology. Dr. Legator was the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. These included the Alexander Hollaender Award for outstanding contributions in the application of the principles and techniques of environmental mutagenesis to the protection of human health from the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society. He also received the Environmental Health Network National Award in recognition of his outstanding efforts in the fields of toxicology and public education, a US Environmental Protection Agency Certificate of Award and an Award of Merit from the Food and Drug Administration. He was an author of over 200 scientific papers and books and served as the Editor of Teratogenesis, Mutagenesis and Carcinogenesis. He also served on the Editorial Boards of several journals including Toxicology and Industrial Health and Environmental Mutagenesis.

Marvin was a tireless champion for individuals and communities that were affected by preventable exposures to hazardous agents in their environments. He assisted many communities in correcting environmental exposure problems. He also assisted numerous individuals injured by toxic exposures by offering expert testimony in the legal arena. He was responsible for the training and development of many professional environmental toxicologists.

He is preceded in death by his parents Ada Okner Legator and Louis Nathan Legator. He will be missed and remembered by his devoted wife Donna, his children Alice, Lori and Kim and his grandchildren Lark, Mikel, Andoni, Kimberly and Michelle. He is also survived by his sister and brother-in-law Eleanor and Franklin Simon, niece Nita Barfhefsky and her husband Alvin and nephew Stuart Simon and wife Rhonda.

Herb Rosenkranz, a good friend, a colleague, and a very nice human being, died this past November 27 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 71, while still in the midst of a very productive career. In addition to being a fount of knowledge and having a high level of energy to contribute to his teaching and to his many scientific interests, he had an extremely pleasant personality. Herb was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1933. After the Nazi anschluss in 1938, and his father's subsequent arrest and release from custody, he and his parents fled Vienna for France, where they traveled around looking for safety. They eventually settled in Lyon and, on October 15, 1941, the family barely escaped capture because they were out looking for food when the synagogue that was being used as a meeting place for refugees was raided and all the people there were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Because of that close call, Herb remembered that day, and would say that he considered every day after that as a gift. The family then traveled to Belgium, back through France, and then to Switzerland, where they were allowed into the country only because they had a child, Herb, with them (at that time, refugee single individuals and couples without children were not allowed to enter the country). As a result of those travels, Herb became fluent in French, in addition to his native German. The family lived in Geneva until they emigrated to the United States in 1948, settling in New York City. Herb earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the City College of New York in 1954 and a PhD in biochemistry in 1959 from Cornell University/Sloan-Ketter- ing Institute for Cancer Research in New York City; his dissertation research was on the fractionation and reactions of DNA. He held postdoctoral appointments at Sloan-Kettering and at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the Department of Microbiology at Columbia University in 1961 as an Assistant Professor. He was appointed Professor and Chairman in 1969. From 1971 to 1972 he was a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University in Israel, where he also became fluent in Hebrew. In 1981, he moved to Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland when he was appointed Mary Ann Swetland Professor and Chairman, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, and Professor of Biochemistry, Pediatrics, Oncology, and Radiology. In 1990, he moved to the University of Pittsburgh as Chairman of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Graduate School of Public Health, and served as Interim Dean of the Graduate School of Public Health from 1998 to 2001. He became Emeritus Professor in 2003, and 'retired' to Florida with an appointment as Research Pro- fessor of Biomedical Sciences, Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, where he continued his research and manuscript writing and, if his illness hadn't intervened, was preparing to teach classes. In 1993, CWRU established the Herbert S. Rosenkranz Annual Award for Excellence in the Environmental Health Sciences, and in 2002, the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health established the Herbert S. Rose- nkranz Award to recognize student excellence in research. During his illustrious career, Herb received many honors and awards, was on numerous national and international committees, advisory boards, and panels, and published nearly 500 articles. I first met Herb in 1973, two years after he had intro- duced the E. coli polA (DNA damage/repair) test for identifying genotoxic chemicals. I was part of an NCI pre-award site-visit team visiting his laboratory at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for a contract to evaluate the efficacy of the, then new, Salmonella test, and other bacterial and yeast tests, including polA. He organized a very impressive site visit, and made an interesting impression on the team when, instead of rolling out an impressive lunch in the confer- ence room as was usually done for visitors with money to spend, he announced at lunchtime that he had a lecture to attend, but if we left the building and turned left, we would come to a very good deli where we could get a good lunch, and that we'd meet again in a couple of hours. He was right about the lunch. He was also awarded one of the contracts. We became personal friends during the course of this contract, and my family and I were often invited to visit him at his home in New Jersey whenever we were in the New York area. It was during our first visit that we discovered that his wife, Deanna, and I had grown up near each other in the Bronx, and had been classmates in the 7th and 8th grades. Herb had the experience and pleasure of publishing a number of articles with his father (who worked at Columbia as an engineer, and in Herb's laboratory to help main- tain and run the equipment) over a 10 year period, and with his eldest daughter and his eldest son, both of whom worked during summers as undergraduate or postgraduate laboratory assistants either in his laboratory or with his long-term colleague, William Speck. He never published with more than one family member at a time, and I remember commenting that he missed the opportunity of publishing a paper by Rosenkranz, Rosenkranz, Rosenkranz, and Rosenkranz. Throughout his research career, he stayed interested in DNA, either as a chemical whose reactivity was to be studied, or as a target for genotoxic substances. In addition to developing the polA test, he conducted pioneering work involving the identification of hydroxyurea as an inhibitor of DNA synthesis and the identification of nitroarenes as environmental and workplace mutagens, and he was an enthusiastic promoter of the use of computer algorithms to identify biological activity through chemical structure. In the past few years, most of his research centered around quantitative structure activity relationships (QSAR), using the CASE system, which he co-developed with Gilles Klopman while at CWRU in the early-to-mid 1980s for computerized prediction of mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. The system was later broadened to include other toxicological effects. Herb was also an enthusiastic proponent of the use of Bayesian statistics to develop algorithms for predicting chemical toxicity and for measuring the effectiveness of individual test methods and test batteries. During the past 15 to 20 years, Herb's interests and publications shifted away from the reporting of the results of laboratory experiments to computational modeling studies. Herb was a member of a number of scientific societies, including the EMS, which he joined in 1969, its first year of existence. He served as an EMS Councilor from 1978 to 1981, was on the Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis Editorial Board from 1982 to 1993, and won the Society's Alexander Hollaender Award in 1989. He also organized the Fifth International Conference on Environmental Mutagens in Cleveland in 1989. During all the time I knew him, Herb was always softspoken and gracious, and never failed to have an upbeat, cheerful greeting. I knew him to lose his temper only once. It was during a telephone conversation when he was recounting what can best be described as a snafu at an overseas conference at which he was a guest speaker, and his interactions with a particularly rude person who was the prime creator of that snafu. His anger was evident only by what he said, not in how he said it. Herb was a devoted husband and family man. He is survived by his wife, Deanna, whom he married in 1959, eight children, and an increasing number of grandchildren.

William Lawson “Bill” Russell was born in Newhaven, on the south coast of England. His father was the small town’s sole pharmacist during World War I. The analytical thinking of his father had a strong impact on the intellectual development of his son. From his years in Newhaven he was fascinated by the sea and enjoyed sailing very much.

After his early schooling in Newhaven, he earned a scholarship to Oxford University, where he was on the rowing and judo teams. Upon graduating in 1932, he was awarded a one-year fellowship to Amherst College in Massachusetts. His work with Drosophila at Amherst encouraged him to apply for doctoral work under Professor Sewall Wright at the University of Chicago. Before starting his work on the doctoral thesis he wanted to know his adopted country better and hitchhiked to the West Coast and back. He earned his doctorate in 1936 with a dissertation on physiological genetics of guinea pigs. Dr. Russell married fellow University of Chicago doctoral student Elizabeth Schull in 1937. The couple moved to Maine that same year to work at the Jackson Laboratory. They had four children together before divorcing in 1947.

During the latter part of the 1940s, Bill married Liane (Lee) Brauch, who would be his lifelong companion and coworker until his death. The newlyweds moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Dr. Alexander Hollaender had established the Biology Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In Oak Ridge, they started a new research career and founded a family. Lee and Bill had two children. While beginning to plan his research, Bill asked Dr. Hollaender for a conventional-size mouse colony in order to continue his research. However, in the post-World War II era, there was much concern about possible hazards from the fallout of nuclear weapons tests and from peaceful uses of radiation. On the recommendations of the Nobel laureate Herman J. Muller and Sewall Wright a mouse genetics program was initiated in Oak Ridge. Therefore, Dr. Hollaender asked Bill Russell to investigate the genetic effects of radiation in mice. Dr. Hollaender and his advisers encouraged Dr. Russell to think big; the first floor of an old factory was developed into a very efficient mouse house. In 1951 W.L. Russell published the first results of his experiments: “X-ray-induced mutations in mice” (Cold Spring
Harbor Symp Quant Biol [1951]: 16:327–336). In 48,007 offspring of irradiated males, 53–54 mutations were observed. In 37,868 offspring in the control group, only two mutations could be found. An experiment of such size was a new dimension in biology. Later the second and the third floors of the mouse house were developed, establishing a laboratory with impressive resources that was unique in all the world.

Dr. Alvin Weinberg, the director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, described these experiments in the following way: “Such research requires the style of Big Biology, big institutes, big experiments, big money, and, one hopes, big ideas.” Bill Russell was a brilliant exponent of “Big Biology.”

To study the induction of germ cell mutations in mice, Dr. Russell developed a simple, elegant method to detect recessive mutations in the first generation offspring. This approach is known as the specific-locus assay. A specific-locus test is conducted by mating treated wild-type mice with animals homozygous for seven autosomal-recessive visible mutations. The offspring are expected to be heterozygous at the marker loci. In the event of a mutation at one of the marker loci in a germ cell of the treated wild-type animal, the offspring will express the recessive phenotype characteristic for the locus. The specific-locus method was used by Bill Russell to evaluate the physical and biological factors that affect mutagenesis: radiation dose and dose rate (“Radiation dose rate and mutation frequency,” Science [1958]: 128:1546–1550), dose fractionation (“An augmenting effect of dose fractionation on radiation-induced mutation rate in mice,” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA [1962]: 48:1724–1727), sex differences (“Radiation-induced mutation rates in female mice,” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA [1958]: 44:901–905) and the interval between irradiation and conception in female mice (“Repair mechanisms in radiation mutation induction in the mouse,” Brookhaven Symp Biol [1967]: 20:179–189).

Similar success was achieved in investigating the mutagenicity of N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea. In a key paper (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA [1982]: 79:3589 –3591) Bill writes: “The extreme mutagenic effectiveness of N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea in the mouse has permitted the accumulation of the most extensive dose-response data yet obtained for chemical induction of specific-locus mutations in spermatogonia. In the lower portion of the curve, below a dose of 100 mg/kg, the data fall statistically significantly below a maximum likelihood fit to a straight line.…It is concluded that, despite the mutagenic effectiveness of ethylnitrosourea, the spermatogonia are apparently capable of repairing at least a major part of the mutational damage when the repair process is not swamped by a high dose. This finding is important both in basic studies on the mutagenic action of chemicals in mammals and in risk estimation.”

Bill was very aware of the importance of the mouse data for estimating the genetic risk of radiation and chemicals in man (“The role of mammals in the future of chemical mutagenesis research,” Arch Toxicol [1977]: 38:141–147; and “Comments on mutagenesis risk estimation,” Genetics [1979]: 92(suppl):S187–S194). However, he never published a paper specifically addressing the genetic risk of environmental exposure in humans, because he considered the business of risk estimation too risky.

Dr. Russell was President of the Genetics Society of America, a charter member of the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society (EMGS) and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
On May 5, 1973, Liane B. Russell and William L. Russell were awarded the Rontgen-Plakette (Roentgen Medal) from the Deutsche Rontgen-Museum at Remscheid-Lennep. Later he received many additional awards, including the Fermi Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Department of Energy, and the Health Physics Society’s lifetime achievement award. The new mouse house at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is known as the William L. and Liane B. Russell Laboratory for Comparative and Functional Genomics.

W.L. Russell participated in the United Nations International Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, where he presented papers on the progress of mammalian radiation genetics. He was a very active member of the United States delegation to United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). The different reports, published by UNSCEAR on the “Genetic effects of radiation,” are an excellent source of the progress and the importance of the mouse data generated in Oak Ridge for the estimation of the genetic risk in man. Dr. Russell was also an active participant at EMGS meetings. He invigorated meetings with stimulating and interesting talks and challenged other speakers on points of science. These interactions brought about lively discussions and served as a catalyst to the thinking of EMGS members.

The fundamental work on mutagenesis in mammals attracted young scientists of many countries: Argentina, Belgium, China, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The colleagues of Bill Russell were impressed by his analytical thinking and his basic conviction founded on the age of enlightenment. His spirit can best be expressed by the words of Jens Peter Jacobsen: “Light over the land—that is, what we wanted.”

Bill was not only a great scientist. He loved the world, its mountains, its animals, its plants, and its wild rivers. At least until his 85th birthday he swam across the lake at his summer house. This was a very long distance, and few people had the courage to follow his example. I had the privilege of working in his mammalian section when I received the Public Health Service International Fellowship Award in 1959. With the Fellowship I was able to attend the Radiation Research Conference in San Francisco. I never will forget the enthusiasm of Bill when he advised my family as to what places we should visit on our way to San Francisco and on the way back. He tried to persuade us not only with words, but also with the wonderful pictures that he took on his many tours to the West. Later, we were again together in Oak Ridge (1963–1968). At that time, he was not only our great friend, but also the friend of our children. They were very much impressed by his ability as a magician. His presence made a difference to all who came in contact with him. We were all enriched. He will be missed by many.

Udo Ehling,
Berlin

Biography excerpted from Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis 42:231-232, 2003.

Philip Emile Hartman, a pioneer in microbial genetics and mutagenesis and professor emeritus of biology at Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, died of cancer on May 4, 2003 at the age of 76. It was Dr. Hartman’s meticulous isolation of thousands of histidine mutants and his careful cataloguing and genetic characterization of these mutants that helped pave the way for the development of the Salmonella/Ames test, an assay that is used in the laboratories of academe, industry, and government for the screening of potential carcinogens.

After serving in World War II, Phil Hartman matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his PhD in 1953. He then moved to Cold Spring Harbor to work with the late Milislav Demerec as a National Cancer Institute and an American Cancer Society Fellow. These were important times for him. There, he married Zlata, Dr. Demerec’s daughter, who became his lifetime collaborator both in and outside the laboratory.

There, too, he began his work on Salmonella genetics in earnest.

He joined Johns Hopkins University in 1957 where he conducted his seminal work on the elucidation and regulation of the histidine operon. Phil Hartman made his presence known; he became Professor of Biology in 1965, and, in 1975, he was named William D. Gill Professor of Biology. He published over 200 scientific manuscripts in his career, and Gene Action, a book coauthored by Phil Hartman and Sigmund Suskind, served as the classic college level teaching text for a generation of budding geneticists.

Those fortunate enough to have been a histidinologist will remember annual his operon meetings bringing together the Hartman, Ames, Goldberger, Martin, DeLorenzo, and Blasi laboratories to truly share the latest findings and data. Spearheaded by Phil Hartman and Bruce Ames, these meetings were usually held in the Baltimore/Washington DC area, except for the last one in 1973 which was held in Capri, Italy. The approach to science instilled by Phil Hartman, marked by teamwork and camaraderie, has been a lifelong lesson. A student of Phil’s, my histidine techniques notebook, a tome crafted and shared by all of the histidine researchers, still sits prominently on a bookshelf in my office as a reminder of how science should be done.

Philip Hartman received the EMGS Award in 1985 “in recognition of outstanding research contributions in the area of environmental mutagenesis”. To many inside EMGS, Phil Hartman will be remembered for his seminal papers that led to the development of the Ames test and for his provocative reviews appearing in the Society’s Journal. These, however, are only part of his many contributions to the scientific community at large. His systematic approach to microbial nomenclature remains the standard among the Science Editors to this day, and his unselfish efforts to continue the annotation of the Salmonella linkage map (long before the advent of personal computers and extensive search capabilities) speak to Dr. Hartman’s commitment to science. Further testament of the breadth and clarity of Phil Hartman’s thinking were his fruitful collaborations on the bacterial sugar transport PTS system, the mechanisms of bacterial suppression; hyperplasia, and mechanisms underlying the action of mutagens/antimutagens and carcinogens/anticarcinogens.

Phil Hartman carried his concerns for the environment and humanity outside the laboratory as well. His tireless efforts to increase enrollment of minorities at Johns Hopkins and his dedication to the Johns Hopkins Tutorial Program, a community outreach education enrichment program for Baltimore City youths, are but two examples of his beliefs in a quality education for all. Consistent with his belief in excellence and truth in the classroom, he was one of the original signers of ‘A Statement Affirming Evolution as a Principle of Science’ in 1977. Phil Hartman was also passionate in his love of the environment. He was one of the founding fathers of Maryland’s Assateague Coastal Trust, a cause dedicated to the preservation of Assateague Island, and he also served on the Maryland Conservation Council. And, many Hopkins students will remember the ‘Hartman score card’ posted prominently in the Biology Department revealing the voting records of all US senators and representatives regarding their stances on the environment, education, war, and weapons issues.

Phil Hartman was a true mentor. He opened his laboratory and his notebooks and freely discussed his ideas, views, and experiments with all who were interested. We, the many high school, undergraduate, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who passed through his laboratory and the many collaborators who shared his passion, always knew how lucky we were to have had Phil’s help, insight, and support along the way.

Personally, I had the good fortune of knowing Dr. Philip E. Hartman for 35 years. Over that time, Phil Hartman was my teacher, mentor, collaborator, colleague, and friend. Of all the appellations, however, I felt most privileged to be able to have called him friend. Philip Hartman was a unique and wonderful person, and, like his family and the many whose lives he touched, I shall miss him.

Tom Cebula

Biography excerpted from T.A. Cebula (2003), Environmental & Molecular Mutagenesis (in press).

(Thanks to Mike Salamone for providing these historical photos from the EMGS archives.)

As the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society ages, it is an unfortunate fact that we will see more and more of our earliest movers and shakers pass on. Verne Ray was one of those pioneers in the Society.

Verne passed away on October 16, 2001 at the age of 72.

Verne served the Society in many ways, as Councilor, as Treasurer and as President (1981-82). He took an intense interest in all of the Society's activities. In the 70's and 80's, he was outspoken about the values of the newer technologies, including the Ames test, cytogenetics and the micronucleus assay. In defense of these assays, and armed with data instead of rhetoric, he took on several equally outspoken critics.

On the personal side, I had the honor of working with Verne at Pfizer for about 20 years. All who knew him will agree he was fiercely bright and equally colorful.

What some may not know, Verne had a number of skills, talents, and, some quirks. Can anyone think of Verne and not remember his booming, sonorous, James Earl Jones, voice? He seldom needed a microphone, even in a large auditorium. With adjacent offices, I was privy to all conversations he had on the phone! He loved to use his speaker box and sit several feet away to carry on the conversation.

Although only a chosen few may have been priviliged to witness it, but Verne was an extremely gifted musician. Often, after a long day at scientific meetings, (and a few libations) he could be coaxed into sitting at whatever piano that might be available. His audience would then be treated to some of the most beautiful classical music which was on a par with any professional pianist. And he played without any sheet music!

In his office, Verne had an absolutely bizarre filing system. And it worked! Instead of categorizing his papers and then filing them properly, he would simply put the most recent document on the top of a stack piled on the floor. Over the years, he accumulated myriad stacks throughout his office. The amazing part was when he needed a particular paper, he had an uncanny skill for going to a certain pile, and because everything was chronological, reach into the stack and pull out the precise paper!

This filing system did backfire once. In the mid 70's, we had a particularly fierce Nor'easter on New Year’s Eve. Winds were gusting to 60 MPH and the temperature was -18°. In the wee hours of the morning of New Year's Day, the large plate glass window in Verne's office imploded. The damage was not discovered until mid-morning. Unable to reach Verne, security called me and I went in to survey the disaster. A disaster it was! Verne’s carefully stacked piles of paper had been converted by the wind into a monolayer throughout not only his office, but, because his door blew open, out into the lab as well. My first impression was that it had snowed 4 inches inside the building. Verne spent the next three weeks sorting and restacking his valuable records, sputtering mightily all the time.

We will all miss Verne Ray. Our condolences go out to his wife Mary Ann and his children, John and Verne Jr.

Henry Holden

Contributions in his memory may be donated to the EMGS Verne Ray Memorial Fund. You may include your contribution with your annual EMGS membership renewal form, or send it to the EMGS Business Office.

Dr. Ann Mitchell died unexpectedly Thursday, July 15, 1999 from complications associated with anesthesia at the UNC hospital in Chapel Hill. Ann was a long-time EMGS member and EMGS Treasurer from 1977-1983. She was a founding member of the Genetic and Environmental Toxicology Association of Northern California (GETA) in 1979 as well as a member of the Genotoxicity and Environmental Mutagen Society (GEMS) who served on the GEMS Board of Directors (1991-94). Ann earned her PhD in cell biology from the University of Texas, and earned national and international acclaim for her genetic toxicology work using the mouse lymphoma, unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS) and cytogenetic assays. She was the founder and President of Genesys Research Incorporated. Ann was a highly valued and respected member of the EMGS and GEMS and will be greatly missed. The GEMS Young Investigator Travel Award presented at the 1999 GEMS Annual Fall Meeting was given in honor of Dr. Ann Mitchell.

Contributions in her memory may be donated to the EMGS Ann Mitchell Memorial Fund. You may include your contribution with your annual EMGS membership renewal form, or send it to the EMGS Business Office.

We write as a tribute to Jim Neel, whose accomplishments during his long and full life were a major factor in the development of modern human genetics. Although battling a string of formidable ailments, he was active and typically feisty to the end. Shuffleboard in the sun was not for him. It is more than a little ironic that the first two pages of the new millennium in [Am. J. Hum. Genet.], which he helped found, are devoted to his last paper. As demonstrated by his other papers published in 1999, even at 84 he was articulate, forthright, and knowledgeable as ever.

James van Gundia Neel was born on March 22, 1915, in Hamilton, Ohio. He graduated in 1935 from the College of Wooster (Ohio), where, under Warren Spencer, he investigated natural genetic variation in Drosophila. This laid the foundation for the scientific inquiry into the role of evolutionary forces particularly mutation in the genetic complexities of natural populations, which was to be the hallmark of his entire career. Jim did his graduate work at the University of Rochester (New York), pursuing genetic variability in Drosophila under Curt Stern. In 1939, with a newly minted PhD, he accepted a post at Dartmouth. There he discovered a Drosophila strain in which variability in bristle number seemed to be driven by a high mutation rate. This stimulated his lifelong general interest in mutation as a potent evolutionary force. However, with his leanings toward human genetics in particular and with war being imminent, Jim modified his career path by entering medical school at Rochester and was inducted into the U.S. Army. After residency in Rochester and a stint with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) in Japan, he assumed his lifelong post at the University of Michigan. Jim had high professional standards and did not seek personal attention, but he nonetheless quickly attained scientific prominence and eventually became the recipient of most of the important academic honors that can be bestowed on a biomedical scientist: member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1963 and recipient of the Lasker and Allen Awards and of the National Medal of Science. Over the years, he was called on for considerable national and international advisory service, although he had a remarkable ability to say no to things that he did not deem important.

Jim's first major contribution to human genetics involved the inheritance of sickle-cell anemia. In our molecular age, it is difficult to appreciate how difficult it was to discern the inheritance of these complex phenotypes, characterized by variable clinical severity in individuals of African descent. Using earlier insights from his thalassemia studies, Jim solved the problem by detailed analysis of phenotypic segregation. Controlling for ascertainment in carefully identified families, he showed that the sickle trait was the heterozygous condition and that sickle-cell disease was the recessive homozygous condition at a single Mendelian locus.

Just as he was starting his tour of duty in a U.S. Army hospital, Lieutenant Neel was summoned to Washington and was whisked onto a plane to Japan, to begin studies of the effects of radiation exposure in survivors of the atomic bombings. He arrived in 1946, just 15 months after the bombing, was a key person in the development of the scientific program, and was asked to stay on as acting director after his initial tour of duty. He thus played a leading part in establishing the ABCC (now known as the "Radiation Effects Research Foundation," or RERF) in Hiroshima, and he continued working there for decades, although from Michigan as his base.

Radiation dangers were paramount in the public mind at the end of the war. Muller had shown that ionizing radiation was mutagenic to the individual, and, for population geneticists, there were additional grounds for concern. In the prevailing theory of the time, mutation pressure was expected to introduce only a small number of deleterious mutations. These were predicted to be largely recessive, but in small populations such as had characterized our ancestry, the high probability of homozygosity would rapidly eliminate them. However, in the large, heterogeneous outbred human populations of today, with their diminished probability of homozygosity, a mutational "load" of recessive mutations could accumulate before the burden of their harmful homozygous effects was borne.

At the time there was no direct test for mutations (the DNA era had not yet dawned). Instead, in a "model of design and execution", the investigators developed a set of surrogate criteria related to birth defects and estimated the frequency of the various defects in offspring born to survivors, in relation to dose. Although the indicators were in the expected direction, the most striking result of this 40-years work was that "in no instance is there a statistically significant effect of parental exposure". Similarly inconclusive results were found in another classic mutation study, in which Jack and Jim used the comprehensive Japanese genealogical record keeping system to estimate the prevailing burden of recessive mutation, on the basis of the excess frequency of defects expected in offspring of inbred matings. Even the huge sample sizes available were insufficient for characterization of rare mutational events, especially with indirect and incomplete detection technology.

Jim's concern with the natural load of mutational effects and his realization that human population history was responsible for their amount and dispersion led to an interest in the study of humans in a more evolutionarily natural state, where those processes could be observed. He placed particular stress on the understanding of local microdemographic events through which the human evolutionary processes occurred.

Jim recognized that the cultural changes accompanying the progression from tribal society to urbanization had created novel environments for selection and that this contrast might reveal selective pressures, with consequences for human health. Reflecting this view was his "thrifty genotype" hypothesis, suggesting that in modern society susceptibility to diseases such as diabetes might be a deleterious consequence of genotypes that had formerly been advantageous in human ancestral environments, arguably one of the most influential hypotheses in genetic epidemiology.

Except for the few and the lucky, leadership goes beyond discoveries. Historians will trace the development of human genetics, now one of the most prominent of sciences, to a few determined and dedicated people. Jim Neel was a driving force among them. He was motivated by intellectual rather than by material capital. Lists of patents, citations, number of genes mapped will not tell his story. His legacy is the emphasis that he placed on the application of basic biological and evolutionary principles to genetic variation in natural populations and to the understanding of genetic etiology. This has shaped our science in a manner probably not wholly appreciated by those rushing pell-mell into biotechnology.

In his biography (Neel 1994) as a "physician to the genome" Jim lays out his vision for the future of our species. His views have received considerable attention. Taking a natural historian's perspective, Jim noted the current belief that genetic knowledge will contribute to public health by tailoring the genome to the environment. He warned that this will be a wasteful and probably losing proposition. As he repeatedly pointed out, the essential facts have been known for a century or more. Most of the complex multifactorial diseases really are just that, complex, not "genetic" in the usual sense. Their expression is heavily dependent on interaction with rapidly changing environments. [Jim believed that] much more effective and cost-efficient improvements to human well-being can be made by tailoring the environment to the genome.

He suggests that we keep our current love affair with mapping and cloning in perspective. In particular, he warns that excessive concern about genetic disease will become a trivial luxury if we do not avoid the specter of global overpopulation of the species to whose welfare he was so long dedicated.

This tribute is excerpted from K.M. Weiss and R.H. Ward, OBITUARY, James V. Neel, M.D., PhD (March 22, 1915 - January 31, 2000): Founder Effect, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 66:755-760, 2000. Please see this article for more information, photographs and references.

EMGS member Tony Dipple died on May 26, 1999. Many of us will remember seeing him at the EMGS meeting in Washington (March, 1999). Tony was born in England in 1940 and received his PhD in biological chemistry from the University of Birmingham in 1964. After a post-doc at the McArdle Laboratory with Charles Heidelberger, he joined the Institute for Cancer Research in London where he began his life-long research on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. There, with Philip Lawley and Peter Brooks he studied the metabolic activation of these carcinogens and their interaction with DNA. In 1975, he moved to the newly created NCI research labs in Frederick, MD, where he remained until his death.

Tony was a world authority on DNA alkylation and polycyclic hydrocarbon-DNA adducts. His scientific contributions included studies on the mutagenic properties of different hydrocarbon-DNA adducts, and the importance of tissue-specific activation of PAH's in vivo. In 1980 he established the journal Carcinogenesis with R. Colin Garner, and continued as an executive editor until his death. Tony authored 164 papers, served on review boards, and mentored numerous post-docs in his lab in Frederick. He will be missed by the scientific community worldwide. Those who worked with him will miss his patience as a teacher, his dedication to cancer research, and his good will toward all.

A more complete biography may be found in the article by C.A.H. Bigger (1999) In memoriam: Anthony Dipple, Environ Mol Mutagen 34:227-32.

Contributions in his memory may be donated to the EMGS Anthony Dipple Memorial Fund. The fund will endow a travel award for a graduate student, post-doc, or international scientist working in the area of DNA-chemical interactions as related to carcinogenesis. You may include your contribution with your annual EMGS membership renewal form, or send to the EMGS Business Office.

(Thanks to Mike Salamone for providing these historical photos from the EMGS archives.)

Robert (Bob) Hall Haynes O.C., B.Sc., PhD, D.Sc., F.R.S.C. died December 22, 1998 from an apparent heart attack. Among his many colleagues in the field of environmental mutagenesis, Bob was best known for his pioneering contributions to the study of DNA repair, and the development of novel mathematical approaches to analyze dose-response relations for the induction of mutation and recombination. However, his scholarly contributions extended well beyond experimental research, and he was one of a select group of scientists who explored the more far-reaching and philosophical implications of the science in which they were engaged.

Bob Haynes was President of the International Association of Environmental Mutagen Societies (1989-93) and he also served as an EMGS Councilor (1978-81, 1985-88). He served on the National Research Council Committee on Radiobiology of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1963-73), the editorial board of Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis (1979-85) as well as 15 other journals, and the International Commission for Protection against Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens (1987-92). He was President of the 16th International Congress of Genetics in Toronto in 1988, the largest congress ever held in the history of genetics research. Bob's many achievements were recognized through a number of honors and prestigious awards. These include the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal (1977), the EMGS Award (1984), and the Flavelle Medal of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1990, he received the Order of Canada, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the Government of Canada. In the year before his death Bob served as President of the Royal Society of Canada.

Far beyond his numerous scientific and intellectual accomplishments, it was Bob's buoyant, outgoing personality, as pronounced by his hearty laugh and Epicurean philosophy and lifestyle that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of Bob Haynes. Another aspect of Bob's character that contributed to his stature in science and as a person was his generosity. He selflessly gave his support to his colleagues, including graduate and postdoctoral students, and notably to dedicated scientists in countries where such support had been very limited. Bob's professional generosity was a wonderful example to all. Those who knew him personally are fortunate to have been enriched by his insights and through his sincere friendship. His loss is deeply felt by the many people, worldwide, whose careers he influenced and whose lives he touched.

Biography excerpted from B.A. Kuntz and P.C. Hanawalt (1999), Environmental & Molecular Mutagenesis 33:257-265.