Dear graduates and friends of Biochemistry, December 1991
This has been a year of big changes in the Department, and we are also marking some important milestones. The
sad news is the departure of Profs. Jack Dixon and Claudia Kent to the University of Michigan where Jack assumed the
Chair of Biochemistry last July 1. They are superb colleagues, faculty members, and friends, and we miss them sorely.
The good news is that we have three new faculty members who are settling in after their arrival in September,
Drs. Jonathan LeBowitz, Sandra Rossie, and Harry Charbonneau. Dr. LeBowitz comes to us from Boston where he did
post-doctoral work with Phil Sharp and Stephen Beverley (MIT and Harvard). He is working on gene expression in
Leishmania, a parasite in the news these days since many Desert Storm veterans were infected with it. Dr. Rossie investi¬
gates the regulation of ion channels in cells. Ion channels are key elements in the systems by which cells respond to their
environments and regulate intracellular metabolism. Dr. Charbonneau studies protein tyrosine phosphatases which regu¬
late a host of metabolic processes from signal transduction to growth and development. It is always invigorating to have
enthusiastic new colleagues in our midst.
But these years in the early 90's also mark important anniversaries. Last year Victor Rodwell celebrated 25 years
of service on the Purdue faculty. 1991 was the 25th anniversary for Karl Brandt, Larry Butler, Gunter Kohlhaw, Henry
Weiner, and Howard Zalkin. Next year marks 25 years for Ronald Somerville, Ki-Han Kim, and David Krogmann.
That's 225 years of dedicated service to Purdue! And half the Department. This is a group of whom it can truly be said
that they don't get older, they get better. Each is internationally recognized and involved to the utmost in his academic
pursuits. Most hearty congratulations to them all and to that sage who hired them, Barney Axelrod. Those of you who
enjoyed their mentoring may weU want to drop them a line and bring them up to date on your activities (thereby communi¬
cating with the rest of us, too).
Steve Broyles and Jim Forney were bursting at the seams in their original quarters, so Steve just moved to Claudia
Kent's second floor lab, and room 116 down the hall from Jim has been cleared of some of the jumble of common equip¬
ment to make room for his expansion. Barney Axelrod continues to probe the wonders of lipoxygenase and anxiously
await crystallographic results. Sara Axelrod has had a remarkable recovery from her cancer surgery of early 1990 and
remains free of detectable tumors for which are all most thankful. Lee Weith continues to develop the fine computer
resource for us all with the help of the AIDS Center. And Klaus Herrmann is spending a year in his native Deutschland on
a Purdue/Hamburg University faculty exchange program. Rumor has it that he still remembers how to speak German.
You will see elsewhere in this letter a list of awards and recognitions to our people that came to our attention in
the past year. Several of our faculty also were mentioned in the News sections of Science and Nature. Protein phos¬
phatases were big this year and work by Steve Broyles, Jack Dixon, and Harry Charbonneau received notice in that area.
(Harry did that work at the University of Washington, but we claim him now.)
We are currently searching for two more faculty members. One is a continuing search for a junior faculty
member with preference in the plant molecular biology field. The other is for a mammalian molecular biologist at a senior
level for a position supported in part by the Walther Cancer Research Institute of Indianapolis.
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lelp us to maintain and support our programs by supporting the Dept. of Biochemistry. Please be as generous as you can
id include a matching gift form if your company has such a plan.  Mark appropriate box and send a check payable to
irdue Research Foundation.  Contribution to   [ ] Axelrod Lectureship     [ ] Department Discretionary Fund