Obituaries

Nicholas R. Cozzarelli, 67, a biochemist and the editor of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences since 1995, died on March 19, after complications from Burkitt's lymphoma.

He was born in Jersey City, N.J., to Italian immigrant parents. His father was a shoemaker, and his mother edited telephone books. Cozzarelli earned a full scholarship to Princeton University and graduated with an A.B. in 1960. At Harvard Medical School, he completed a Ph.D. in biochemistry six years later. Nobel Laureate Arthur Kornberg was his postdoctoral adviser at Stanford University.

Cozzarelli was known for his research on DNA. He discovered how proteins knit DNA back together after it has been damaged. Some of his discoveries had clinical applications. While working at the University of Chicago, he and Martin Gellert were the first to show how drugs called quinolones inhibit enzymes. Cozzarelli also advocated mathematical studies to understand how enzymes work (ACS Chem. Biol. 2006, 1, 123).

In 1982, Cozzarelli joined the molecular biology faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He chaired the department from 1986 to 1989 and directed the Virus Laboratory from 1986 to 1990. In 1988, with funding from the National Science Foundation, he founded the Program for Mathematics & Molecular Biology, which helped to blur the boundaries between the disciplines. More recently, he manipulated single molecules with magnetic and optical tweezers.

Cozzarelli was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989. An editorial board member for many publications, including the Public Library of Science Biology, he was also an advocate of open-access publishing.

Cozzarelli is survived by his wife, Linda; a daughter; and two brothers.

Donald J. Creighton, 60, an enzymologist, died of abdominal cancer on Feb. 16.

A California native, Creighton received a B.S. in chemistry in 1968 from California State University, Fresno, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1972 from the University of California, Los Angeles. He did postdoctoral work with Judith Klinman and chemistry Nobel Prize winner Irwin Rose at the Institute for Cancer Research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

In 1975, he joined the chemistry faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and spent the rest of his career there. He studied drug development for multi-drug-resistant prostate and breast cancers.

Creighton produced numerous publications, patents, and licenses during his career. He also received an Outstanding Service Award from the American Cancer Society and was an American Heart Association Fellow and a spokesperson for its Maryland section.

His own cancer had already reached the most severe level when he was first diagnosed, at age 52. For the next eight and a half years, he kept his illness a secret to all but his closest friends and family and missed very little work. Creighton continued to produce internationally recognized work in enzymology, and he biked, hiked, and traveled with his family.

"He was a real fighter through all these years of suffering and a splendid enzymologist whose work was always incisive," said Frank Jordan, an enzymologist in the chemistry department at Rutgers University.

Creighton is survived by his wife, Arlene and two daughters. He joined ACS in 1976.

Anselmo M. Elias, 60, a professor of chemistry, died on Oct. 4, 2005, as a result of heart failure that occurred immediately after a kidney transplant.

He was born in Góis, Portugal, and received his bachelor's degree from the University of Lisbon. He then moved to the U.S. to work with Austen Angell at Purdue University in Indiana. Under Angell's tutelage, Elias received a master's degree in chemistry from Purdue and his Ph.D. from Lisbon. From 1978 until 1980, he was also a Fulbright Student.

He taught in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Lisbon for 33 years and at the Portuguese Air Force Academy for 15 years. Elias' research interests centered on ionic liquids and glasses, especially the chemistry and physics of glass transition temperatures in relatively low-melting molten salts. Recently, he had extended into green chemistry and used ionic liquids as solvents for various chemical reactions.

Elias was also very active in the field of general science education and, in particular, chemical education. He supervised science teachers in the field. In 1999, he developed a master's degree program in science education at the University of Lisbon and directed that program until recently.

Elias is survived by his wife and colleague, Maria Elisabeth da Silva Fonseca Elias, and three children. He joined ACS in 1986.

Herbert Hellwege, 84, a chemistry professor at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., died on Nov. 16, 2005.

He was born in Germany and later came to the U.S., where he earned a doctorate in 1953. Rollins College recruited Hellwege to teach the following year. In three decades on the faculty, he did research, introduced new courses, chaired the department, helped to start the school's soccer team, and won various teaching awards. One of Hellwege's sons remembers that his father's students still visited their favorite professor at home 20 years after they had graduated.

Hellwege retired from chemistry in 1985. He traveled, took tai chi, gardened, and became so enamored with clock repair after taking a class that he ended up teaching the trade to others.

He was preceded in death in 1998 by his first wife, Frieda, and is survived by his wife, Lydia Broschart; two sons; and four grandchildren.

Albert W. Kleinschmidt, 92, an organic research chemist, died from congestive heart failure with complications on Dec. 29, 2005.

As a teenager at the beginning of the Great Depression, Kleinschmidt valued education and considered it the key to future security. He graduated as valedictorian of his high school class in Iowa, received a B.S. in chemical technology from Iowa State University in 1935, and earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Purdue University in 1941.

He worked for Central Soya, Beatrice Foods, and American Maize as a research chemist and held patents for innovations that provided the framework for future conceptions in the fields of cereal chemistry and food technology. He retired from J. R. Short Milling Co. as vice president and technical director.

During retirement, he was a guest lecturer for the University of Central Florida's biology department. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Margaret; three children; five grandchildren; and one great-grandson. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1942.