In memoriam

1950
George W. Brown, Jr. (B.S. Chemistry, M.A. Physiology, Ph.D. Computational Biochemistry) passed away on January 9, 2004. He was a professor of fisheries at the University of Washington, where he taught courses on the biochemical and physiological effects of pollution, and conducted research on nitrogen metabolism, especially in primitive fishes. He also worked as a consultant in the area of pollution and served on the editorial board of Aquatic Toxicology.

Before joining the University of Washington faculty, he was a postdoc at the National Institutes of Health (1956), an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School (1957-61), and an associate professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (1961-67). He had two sons, Jonathan and Eric, and a daughter, Becky. He lived in Edmonds, WA.

1953
Murray Goodman (Ph.D. Chem) , a pioneer in peptide chemistry, died June 1, 2004, of pneumonia at the age of 75. His research focused on the chemical synthesis of natural peptide mimics and the way in which their structure contributes to their function. He was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, and was editor-in-chief of the journal Biopolymers from 1963 until his death.

A native New Yorker, he received his B.S. from Brooklyn College and, following his graduate studies at Cal, did postdoctoral work at MIT and Cambridge University. In 1956 he joined the faculty at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, eventually assuming directorship of the school’s Polymer Research Institute. He left in 1970 to join the faculty of UCSD, where he served for six years as chair of the chemistry department.
He was the recipient of many awards, including the ACS’s Ralph Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry (1997), the Herman F. Mark Polymer Chemistry Award (2000), and an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2001). He also contributed to San Diego’s Jewish community, serving as president of the Congregation Beth El synagogue in La Jolla and on the boards of the Hillel Foundation and the La Jolla County Day School. He is survived by his wife, Zelda, three sons, and six grandchildren.

1994
Andrew C. Braisted (Ph.D. Chem) , a scientist who worked at the interface of chemistry and biology, passed away on October 4, 2003, after suffering a heart attack. He was 39 years old.

He earned his B.S. in chemistry at Bates College and did his doctoral work at Berkeley under the direction of Peter Schultz, in whose laboratory he developed the first antibodies that catalyzed oxy-Cope rearrangements. These antibodies later became important for understanding structural changes that accompany the maturation of antibody catalysis.

As a postdoctoral researcher with James A. Wells at Genentech, he did a series of studies showing it was possible to make “minimalized” versions of protein A through a combination of phage display, rational design, and peptide chemistry. He demonstrated that selection methods evolve function both by optimizing binding determinants and by folding.

In 1998, he became the first scientist to join Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, founded by Wells, in South San Francisco. He was an instrumental figure in the company, helping to build its scientific and technological capabilities, as well as its staff, facility, and even its name. He was co-inventor of an important fragment-based drug discovery technology called “tetheringSM,” a highly sensitive technique that screens fragments rather than full molecules of drug leads, and he was a central member of a team that developed high-affinity small-molecule inhibitors to the cytokine interleukin-2. Braisted is survived by his wife, Joelle Morrow, M.D., and his son, Miles Andrew Braisted.

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