Emile Zuckerkandl
RIP
Emile Zuckerkandl died on November 9, 2013.
He was by no account obscure but neither did he quite enjoy the status of a "great scientist" which, in my opinion, he richly deserved. Zuckerkandl was the founder of Molecular Evolution and the father of Molecular Clock. He published on these issues with Linus Pauling, and of course, Pauling's genius, customary incisiveness, and clout should not be underestimated, yet this really was Zuckerkandl's feat (http://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/evolution/public/clock/zuckerkandl.html). For about a decade after his seminal work with Pauling, Zuckerkandl continued to publish brilliant papers in molecular evolution, e.g:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/765485
He did not really manage to enter the new, genomic era as a major player which is probably one of the reasons his contribution seems to be somewhat overlooked these days.
I have never met Zuckerkandl in person (why-oh-why?! I have visited Palo Alto where he live and worked at least 5 times and had some time on my hands...), only exchanged some very interesting letters with him, yet I owe him deep personal gratitude. I learned about molecular evolution from the masterpiece he published with Pauling: Zuckerkandl, E. and Pauling L., "Evolutionary divergence and convergence in proteins," in V. Bryson and H.J. Vogel (eds.), Evolving Genes and Proteins (New York: Academic Press, 1965), pp. 97-166, only a few years after it appeared (at a very tender age), and I have never lost my fascination with the subject since those days.
A day before Zuckerkandl died, on November 8 this year, I delivered a lecture (http://bioinformatics.gatech.edu/2013/podium-abstracts) in which I showed his (and Pauling's) picture...of course, this is no consolation but such are the facts
Emile Zuckerkandl died on November 9, 2013.
He was by no account obscure but neither did he quite enjoy the status of a "great scientist" which, in my opinion, he richly deserved. Zuckerkandl was the founder of Molecular Evolution and the father of Molecular Clock. He published on these issues with Linus Pauling, and of course, Pauling's genius, customary incisiveness, and clout should not be underestimated, yet this really was Zuckerkandl's feat (http://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/evolution/public/clock/zuckerkandl.html). For about a decade after his seminal work with Pauling, Zuckerkandl continued to publish brilliant papers in molecular evolution, e.g:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/765485
He did not really manage to enter the new, genomic era as a major player which is probably one of the reasons his contribution seems to be somewhat overlooked these days.
I have never met Zuckerkandl in person (why-oh-why?! I have visited Palo Alto where he live and worked at least 5 times and had some time on my hands...), only exchanged some very interesting letters with him, yet I owe him deep personal gratitude. I learned about molecular evolution from the masterpiece he published with Pauling: Zuckerkandl, E. and Pauling L., "Evolutionary divergence and convergence in proteins," in V. Bryson and H.J. Vogel (eds.), Evolving Genes and Proteins (New York: Academic Press, 1965), pp. 97-166, only a few years after it appeared (at a very tender age), and I have never lost my fascination with the subject since those days.
A day before Zuckerkandl died, on November 8 this year, I delivered a lecture (http://bioinformatics.gatech.edu/2013/podium-abstracts) in which I showed his (and Pauling's) picture...of course, this is no consolation but such are the facts