Editorial pubs.acs.org/jpr
In Memoriam: Thomas Edward Fehniger found himself in Ethiopia, where, together with scientists from the Karolinska Institute, he conducted field studies on cutaneous leishmaniasis and, later, on HIV/AIDS. Significantly, Tom and his colleagues were responsible for the discovery of a unique strain of Ethiopian HIV-1 (C-clade), different from the HIV-1 clades prevalent in the Western world. Tom was extremely excited about this research field and followed the progresses and developments over decades. Tom later spent 11 years at Stockholm University, followed by 9 years at the Karolinska Institute as head of the Histology unit. In 1998, Tom made the transition from academia to industry, where I met him when he joined Astra Draco in Lund, Sweden, which later became AstraZeneca. He was heading up a research team as a senior scientist in drug discovery and development at their R&D site in Lund in 1998, specializing in respiratory pathology. We made great developments together and filed numerous patents. Later, we bought back the patents from AstraZeneca and applied them toward clinical developments in academia. At AstraZeneca Tom established the Biobanking procedures and infrastructure that was used throughout all global studies in respiratory diseases. In 2010, Tom left AstraZeneca and was appointed by the Estonian Science Foundation as Top Researcher in the EU-sponsored Mobilitas Program, specializing in COPD and Lung Cancer pathology at the Tallinn Clinicum. After Tom’s return to Lund in 2013, I went to his house, where I found him in the garage. He pointed out to me that he was “fixing things...”. Usually we had a coffee together, and after several months I was wondering if these things perhaps might be fixed by now. Finally, after numerous cups of coffee, Tom joined the Clinical Protein Science & Imaging division in 2013, where we together initiated CEBMMS, Lund University. He then became the Director of CEBMMS, a position he held until his untimely death. As a Director, he was highly respected by deans of faculties, PIs in the Center, colleagues, and friends, simply because he was such a kind and supportive person interested and happy with his life. He had the ability to present and explain complicated science problems in such an elegant and straightforward way that even nonexperts and politicians could appreciate and take a stand for science developments; some even became experts after a lecture given by Tom. We will bring Tom with us in our heart, pushing forward to reach our goals, and we will hear his voice, “Come on, Man! Let’s get that rightyou know we need to lead by example...” Lund, 1st of July 2016, almost a year after Tom left us.
György Marko-Varga, Photographer
O
ur dear friend and colleague Tom Fehniger, the Founding Director of The Center of Excellence in Biological and Medical Mass Spectrometry (CEBMMS), passed away on July 5, 2015. Tom was a highly appreciated and respected scientist with a broad repertoire in medical sciences and biology. Tom was a member of the JPR Editorial Advisory Board for two periods, all in all, more than 6 years. He was also very active within the Chromosome 19 international team, hunting for the missing proteins. The HPP initiative engaged him a lot, hunting for clinical studies and patient materials from the Biobanks that could provide a good basis for missing protein SRM studies. Tom was a coauthor on a number of C-HPP missing protein papers and was active in the C-HPP meetings, the last one in Milan at the world expo, which was a great success. By nature Tom had an absolute need to understand how things worked and how knowledge could be applied to solve the unknown. Tom had a truly international perspective in his mind on how research projects and clinical studies should be addressed. He developed these ideas and plans during the extensive travels around the world with me that we encountered the last 3 years. These years were the transition phase for us when we left Big Pharma and started to build up a clinical center and laboratory facility. We built it exactly as we always wanted it to bea dream about pushing our own ideas forward and taking all decisions on our own. Sounds easy, but at times it turned out to be a real challenge. He started off his career by graduating from Western Michigan University in 1970 and received his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine in 1985. Tom became the most successful immunology student in the U.S., and that gave him a scholarship to Europe. The trip to this continent was the first of many; in fact, he stayed in Europe and only went back to the states for visits. Prior to earning his Ph.D., Tom worked for 2 years at the NIH, followed by Staff Research positions in John Fahey’s lab at UCLA and Bob Cardiff’s Pathology Department at UC Davis. Tom continued with an 8 year period at UCLA. Investigating the pathogenesis of human and experimental syphilis, Tom © 2017 American Chemical Society
Gyor̈ gy Marko-Varga
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Lund University
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS. Special Issue: The Immune System and the Proteome 2016 Published: January 6, 2017 2
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.6b00964 J. Proteome Res. 2017, 16, 2−2
