Editorial pubs.acs.org/bc
Tribute to Professor Michael John Welch (1939−2012)
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physiology to neuroscience, heart and lung diseases, diabetes and cancer, both diagnosis and therapy. He pioneered methods for labeling cells, as well as proteins, peptides, and small molecules for imaging, and his research with 77Br-estradiol laid the foundation for PET radioligands used today to image receptors in vivo. The list of honors bestowed on Dr. Welch is long and includes the Nuclear Applications award of ACS, essentially every award of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, of which he served as President in1984, and several named lectureships. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1996. Perhaps the most personal tribute to his stature as a visionary scholar and educator was that Washington University flew the university flag at half-staff for three days after his passing. Professor Welch is survived by his two children and five grandchildren and by his long-time companion, Mickey Clark. He was remembered fondly by numerous friends and colleagues, past and present, in a memorial service on the campus of Washington University on June 4, 2012. His family has established a foundation in his memory to support research and education in nuclear medicine: www.mjwelchfoundation. org.
rofessor Michael Welch was a true pioneer in showing what a chemist can contribute to a Department of Radiology. Before he started his career at Washington University in 1967, there were no chemists developing new cyclotron-based imaging agents in radiology departments; Michael was an original, an innovator, and the person who has become a model for a basic scientist in a clinical department. Dr. Welch was trained as a physical chemist and radiochemist. He received his education at Cambridge University (BA 1961, MA 1965) and from Queen Mary College, University of London (PhD 1965) under Professor David Urch. After a postdoctoral stint with A.P. Wolf at Brookhaven National Laboratory, he moved to St. Louis where he spent 45 yrs pioneering new radioactive molecules for imaging human biology. Over the course of his career, Mike mentored as graduate students, postdocs, and faculty colleagues over fifty of the leading scientists developing new radioactive imaging agents. Michael’s trainees are today’s leaders in industry and government as well as academia, and they can be found in every corner of the globe. Dr. Welch was an ambassador to the world; he traveled tirelessly, and he lectured extensively as an advocate for excellence in biomedical research. He served on numerous peer review committees for NIH, DOE, DOD, and other agencies in the United States and abroad. He had excellent instincts for selecting the best students and the best research proposals, and he provided sage scientific and strategic advice to investigators, science administrators, and policy makers alike. Dr. Welch had a great passion for life, for his science, for his family, and for sports and music, and he never did anything halfway. He was an accomplished swimmer and captain of his high school team, an avid fan of English football, and he enjoyed sailing. He could be seen at sporting events for the collegiate and professional sports teams in the St. Louis area, and he took great pride in getting the best tickets to the most sought-after musical concerts. Michael was also a loving and nurturing father to two children, Colin and Lesley, and for several years, as a family activity, Dr. Welch raised and showed champion Norwegian Elk Hounds, often traveling on weekends with his children to shows throughout the Midwest. Professor Welch’s research accomplishments cannot be easily summarized. At the time of his death, his bibliography listed over 550 peer-reviewed papers and 73 book chapters, but this list will grow as work already in progress is published by his many collaborators. His early work involved very short-lived radionuclides to study human physiology at the Division of Radiation Sciences, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, directed by Professor Michel Ter-Pogossian and with such distinguished colleagues as Professors Marcus Raichle, E. James Potchen, Barry Siegel, William Powers, and others. While his research started with imaging agents labeled with 18F, 15O, 13N, and 11C, he developed a long list of metal-labeled imaging agents, beginning with 113mIn. This list subsequently extended to isotopes of numerous metals and halogens. These imaging agents were used in a wide range of research, from basic human © 2012 American Chemical Society
Kenneth A. Krohn Department of Radiology, University of Illinois, 1959 NE Pacific Street, Box 356004, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States
John A. Katzenellenbogen Published: August 18, 2012 1719
dx.doi.org/10.1021/bc300336k | Bioconjugate Chem. 2012, 23, 1719−1720
Bioconjugate Chemistry
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Editorial
Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, 600 S. Mathews Avenue, 461 RAL, Box 37-5 Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Authors
E-mail:
[email protected]. Phone: (217) 333-6310. Fax: (217) 333-7325. E-mail:
[email protected]. Phone: (206) 598-6245. Fax: (206) 598-4192. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/bc300336k | Bioconjugate Chem. 2012, 23, 1719−1720
