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Obituaries
J. Bryan Smith J. Bryan Smith, former Chairman of Pharmacology and beloved faculty member at Temple University School of Medicine died at the age of 62 on Thursday March 24, 2005. He had appointments in both the Pharmacology Department and the Sol Sherry Thrombosis Research Center. He had recently retired and was living in Williamsburg Virginia with his wife Angela to be near his daughter’s family. Bryan received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Graduate Salford University in 1968. He joined Gustav Born’s Medical Research Council Thrombosis Research Group in the Department of Pharmacology at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, England (1968 – 1971), receiving his Ph.D. from the University of London in 1971. While at the University of London he was introduced to the platelet, a cell he would investigate for the rest of his career. During this time Bryan formed a friendship with David Mills, which he would maintain until the recent passing of David. In collaboration with Anthony Willis, Bryan made one of the seminal discoveries of his career. He was studying the effect of aspirin on platelets. Aspirin was known to be an inhibitor of platelet function. Bryan and Tony showed that aspirin blocked the ability of platelets to synthesize prostaglandins in response to platelet agonists. This study was published in Nature New Biology. In accompanying papers, similar observations were made in spleen and lung by others at the Royal College of Surgeons. For his Postdoctoral Fellowship, Bryan decided to join the laboratory of Mel Silver at the Cardeza Foundation for Hematologic Research at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Cardeza is one of the premiere Hematology Research Institutes. His intention was to stay in the United States for a short time and then return to England. Bryan enjoyed living in Philadelphia very much and decided to remain in the area. His time at Cardeza was extremely productive and yielded well over 100 publications. During this period, he continued to work with Mel Silver, and he became a faculty member at Thomas Jefferson University. He collaborated on research projects with many investigators from local medical schools including Thomas Jefferson University, University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University. At this time Philadelphia was probably one of the most important research regions in the world for the study of platelets and problems related to thrombosis. Collaborators included Alan Lefer, K.C. Nicolau, Holm Holmsen, Robert Colman, Stefan Niewarowski and Koneti Rao, just to mention a few of those in Philadelphia. He also collaborated widely with investigators throughout the world. Bryan was ranked the 103rd most cited scientist for the period of 1973-1984. This work was almost exclusively on prostaglandins and thromboxanes, with most of the studies being on platelets. In 1982 Holmsen decided to return to Norway, and Bryan was recruited by Bob Colman to replace Holm as the Assistant Director of the Thrombosis Research Center. Bryan immediately became a central figure in the platelet studies at the Thrombosis Center. With David Purdon, he began detailed studies on the metabolism of arachidonic acid and other lipids in the platelet. Gerard Mauco came to his laboratory for a sabbatical, and along with Carol Dangelmaier, who was inherited from Holm, they showed that phosphatidylinositol was the primary source of arachidonic acid liberated in platelets. Mary Selak joined Bryan’s laboratory in 1985 and along with Michel Chigard, also on sabbatical, began a study of the interactions between neutrophils and platelets. They found that cathepsin G released from neutrophils was a good platelet agonist. One of us (JD) became interested in Bryan’s research and we began a long collaboration. We developed methods to measure inositol trisphosphate in platelets that did not require long incubations. This work led to several important papers defining the role of IP3 in agonist dependent signaling and, in particular, ADP-dependent platelet activation. In 1987, Bryan, along with other well-known local pharmacologists including Warren Chernick, George Koelle, Jay Roberts and Paul Bianchi, co-founded the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society (MAPS), which has since become a constituent chapter of ASPET. At about this same time, Bryan became the chairman of the Pharmacology Department at Temple University School of Medicine. For the next several years Bryan played an integral role in MAPS by serving as host for several meetings and continuing to support its development. In 2001 the society awarded Bryan the George B. Koelle award in recognition of his contributions to pharmacology. The last phase of Bryan's research career was devoted to investigating the signaling mechanisms for platelet collagen. He demonstrated that collagen signaling leads to intracellular Ca2+ mobilization, a finding that ran counter to the current theory of the time. He also explored snake venoms in his efforts to find an inhibitor of collagen-platelet interactions and discovered a new protein that he called Catrocollastatin. In total, Bryan published over 200 papers. In addition to being a scientist, Bryan was devoted to his wife Angela and their two children Suzanne and Timothy. He liked to be active and enjoyed tennis and played with Jan Willem Ackerman during his sabbatical in Philadelphia. He and Angela started to play golf, and part of his reason for enjoying Williamsburg was because of the numerous golf courses in the area. As chairman of Pharmacology, he hosted a number of social events at his house; most will remember the annual Department picnic, which allowed everyone to show their ineptitude at sports. Angela has supplied several amusing stories about Bryan, some of which will be remembered by the many who knew him. When discussing his work on snake venoms as collagen antagonists he said with a chuckle, "We're also considering a snake in Florida - the C-Atrox. It comes in two versions - the Texan and the Oklahoman. We picked the Texan because it's easier to spell." On one occasion, at a party at his house, he led some of the guests out to his backyard where a light was shining in one corner on chickens housed there to raise antibodies to prostaglandins. After selecting four healthy birds and raising them for a month or two, Bryan wondered why he wasn't getting any eggs. It turned out that they were roosters. In a final story, Matteo Russo from La Sapienza in Italy gave Bryan some "special" urine to bring back to the states one August. Unfortunately, Bryan was detained in the Airport for hours during an Italian Bank Holiday, and by the time he got onto the plane, everyone in the terminal was sniffing at the ghastly smell wondering where it was coming from. Bryan combined science, humor and administrative skills in a manner that gained him admiration and respect from his peers and students. All those who knew him will fondly remember him. Prepared by Barrie Ashby, James L. Daniel from Temple University School of Medicine and Jan M. Kitzen from Wyeth Research
Bert N. La Du
Dr. Bert N. La Du, Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan, died January 30, 2005. Dr. La Du was President of ASPET from 1978-1979. Born in Lansing, Michigan, Bert Nichols La Du, Jr. received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Michigan State College in 1943, and earned an M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1945. After an Internship at Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York, and a year as a Teaching Assistant in the Michigan State Department of Biochemistry, he joined the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California in Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1952. From 1950 until 1963, Dr. La Du was associated with the National Institutes of Health, stationed first as a Surgeon at Goldwater Memorial Hospital Research Service in New York, and the National Heart Institute, and later as Medical Director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases. After a sabbatical year at the Galton Laboratory of University College in London, Dr. La Du became Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at New York University in 1963. Dr. La Du moved from New York to Michigan in 1974, where he served as Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan from 1974-80, and then returned to full-time research and teaching in the Department. He retired officially in 1989, and became Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology. In retirement, he continued to be an active, funded investigator with recent grants from the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor Fund and a research contract with the University of Texas. Throughout his scientific career, Dr. La Du’s primary research interests were the biochemistry of drug metabolism and pharmacogenetics. He was an early leader of research on human inborn errors of amino acid metabolism. He is recognized internationally as one of the “founding fathers” of pharmacogenetics. For the past 35 years Dr. La Du’s research has focused on the effects of heredity on drug metabolism and response. He made major contributions to the understanding of genetic variants of the serum cholinesterase enzymes in those human individuals who are unusually susceptible to the actions of succinylcholine. In recognition of his pioneering work, the 1st International Conference on Paraoxoanases: Basic and Clinical Directions of Current Research was held in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan last April 2004. Dr. La Du is survived by his wife of 58 years, Catherine Shilson La Du; his sister, Carol; four daughters, Libby, Mary, Anne and Jane; six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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