Obituaries

Giulio L. Cantoni, 89, director of the National Institutes of Health's biochemistry lab for 40 years, died of congestive heart failure on July 27.

He solved the puzzle of how molecules in cells are methylated, a process used in the synthesis of important molecules. In 1952, he first isolated S-adenosylmethionine, a compound that plays a key role in the nervous system and cognitive function. Four years later, he and a colleague discovered that the chemical can form naturally in humans.

Cantoni was born in Italy. In 1938, he earned a medical degree from the University of Milan. During World War II, Fascists abolished the Italian government and instituted anti-Semitic laws, prompting Cantoni, his mother, and his sister to flee to England in 1940, bound ultimately for the U.S. The day after Italy officially declared war on England, the family was waiting to board a first-class berth on the ship Britannic. British police arrested Cantoni as an enemy alien and interned him.

A month later, Cantoni was transferred to Canada as a prisoner of war. At first, his family thought he was dead; later, they were misinformed that he was in Australia. Eventually, he was allowed to go to Havana. Cantoni then arrived in New York in 1941 to find his mother and sister. He became a U.S. citizen six years later.

He worked at the University of Michigan's Medical School, Long Island College of Medicine, the American Cancer Society, and Case Western Reserve University's Medical School before establishing what is now the Laboratory of General & Comparative Biochemistry at the National Institute of Mental Health.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, he founded in 1968 and directed until his death the chamber music series for the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences.

He is survived by his wife, Gabriella; two daughters; and four grandchildren.

H. Keith Cressman, 80, an analytical chemist, died on Aug. 3.

Cressman's father died of pneumonia when Cressman was just a toddler. His mother then moved with her two sons to live with her mother. She later took a job as a housekeeper for A. J. Schantz, a pipe-organ maker, so Cressman grew up in the Schantz household. In 1948, he graduated from Goshen College. Four years later, he received an M.A. from Purdue University. He earned a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1961. Before retiring in 1995, he worked as a chemist at Daily Analytical Laboratories.

He is survived by his second wife, Audrey Musselman; two sons; and four grandsons. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1960.

H. Howard Flint II, 66, chairman and retired chief executive officer of Flint Ink, died on June 14 after a brief illness.

Flint, the grandson of the company's founder, spent his life in Michigan. Working at the family business during college and graduate school, he took on a full-time position in 1964. He steadily moved through the ranks until he was elected chairman and CEO in 1992. He won various industry awards during his tenure and retired this January. The company remains the largest privately owned printing ink manufacturer in the world.

Flint served on the Western Michigan University Foundation Board for five years and on the board of trustees of the Michigan Colleges Foundation; he was a current member of the board of directors for the Detroit Institute of Art. Flint enjoyed fishing, boating, and hunting, but even in retirement, he remained active in setting the course of Flint Ink and meeting with customers.

He is survived by three daughters and nine grandchildren.

Richard D. Gilbert, 85, an emeritus professor of wood and paper science at North Carolina State University (NCSU), died on June 21.

Born in Canada, Gilbert received a B.S. with honors in chemistry and physics in 1942 and an M.S. in chemistry in 1943, both from the University of Manitoba. He served as chief chemist at Manitoba Sugar Co., later becoming a research chemist at Polymer Corp. before returning to graduate school. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Notre Dame University in 1950. After postdoctoral study at the Department of National Defense in Canada, he headed south to join American Synthetic Rubber. Gilbert then spent 11 years at Uniroyal Chemical. In 1966, he accepted a faculty position at NCSU. Shortly thereafter, he established a doctoral program in fiber and polymer sciences.

Biodegradable block copolymers based on cellulose, emulsion polymerization, and byssinosis (brown lung disease) research are just a few of his projects. He also did fundamental work on the effects of acid rain and other environmental effects of polymeric coating materials and examined how supercritical carbon dioxide can be used to remove wax from paper products before recycling. His other projects included high-performance materials and low-cost, high-strength composites for low-weight vehicles.

Because state policy requires that faculty members officially retire at age 70, Gilbert assumed emeritus status at NCSU in 1990. But that didn't slow his teaching, research, or mentoring.

He is survived by his wife, Doris, and a daughter. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1947.

George Hsing Kwei, who did seminal research on molecular collision dynamics and neutron diffraction, died on June 8 from a hemorrhagic stroke. He was 66.

Born in China, he spent his childhood in Switzerland because his father was heading a diplomatic mission during World War II. After the war, the family returned to China, but they moved to Taiwan in 1949 when the Nationalist government collapsed. Kwei came to the U.S. at age 12 to study at the Stockbridge School; he entered Harvard University at age 16 and graduated with honors in chemistry and physics in 1959. He had a key role in the pioneering stages of molecular beam chemistry, which has since developed into a major field. After obtaining a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1967, he joined the faculty at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. There, he conducted experiments and classical trajectory calculations dealing with long-lived collision intermediates and also performed a unique study of hydrogen atoms reacting with tritium molecules.

In 1974, Kwei became a research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he focused on collisional energy transfer and elucidated the dynamics in the stratospheric reaction of nitrogen with ozone. In the early 1980s, he took on administrative roles and helped launch a molecular biology program that preceded the Human Genome Project. He returned to research in 1988 and transferred to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1994, where in 2001 he was awarded the Edward Teller Fellowship in recognition of his neutron-scattering work.

Beset by ill health, he retired in 2002. He is survived by his wife, Gloria; two children; and three grandchildren.

Asllan Murati, a process chemist, died on May 12 at the age of 60.

Born and raised in Albania, he earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Tirana, in Albania, and pursued additional studies in chemistry, computer programming, accounting, and water supply and wastewater management at several U.S. schools.

In Albania, he worked as chief of the chemistry service for 10 animal-feed processing centers. For his research and development studies during severe economic conditions, he was honored twice by the Albanian government.

After immigrating to the U.S. in 1995, Murati held varied positions. A resident of Cape Cod, Mass., he was a carrier for the U.S. Postal Service and a caregiver for the elderly. He also worked for Catholic Charities in San Diego as a caseworker and interpreter for refugees from countries such as Kosovo and Somalia. Systran Software, in San Diego, and the laboratories of Shuster Inc., in Massachusetts, employed him as a linguist. People victimized by the Communist regime in Albania turned to him as a cultural guide.

He is survived by his wife, Susan; four sisters; and several nieces and nephews. He joined ACS in 1995.

Kenneth L. Rinehart, 76, a natural products researcher, died on June 13 at his home after a long illness.

Rinehart spent 46 years as a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He also led the chemistry department's marine natural products program, which collected samples from such places as the ocean floor in the mangroves off Puerto Rico. His research led to the development of a procedure involving mutasynthesis to prepare new antibiotics.

In 1990, Rinehart isolated several extracts produced naturally by sea squirts that showed promise as anticancer agents. One of the extracts, ecteinasciden, has repeatedly worked safely and effectively in animal studies and through three stages of human clinical trials against soft-tissue sarcomas and lung, breast, and ovarian cancers. Rinehart identified the substance, also known as ET-743, which has been licensed for commercial production.

He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1950 from Yale University and a doctorate in chemistry in 1954 from the University of California, Berkeley. In between, he spent a year of study as a Rotary Fellow at the University of Göttingen, in Germany.

Rinehart sat on the editorial boards of several journals, including the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and the Journal of Natural Products. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he also served on the Chemistry Advisory Committee of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Chemical & Biological Information Handling Panel of the National Institutes of Health, and the executive committee of ACS's Division of Organic Chemistry.

Rinehart was a Sloan Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. In 1996, he received ACS's Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products. He was also an avid scuba diver, mountain climber, and skier.

Rinehart is survived by his wife, Marlyn; three sons; and two grandsons. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1952.

James S. Ritscher, an industrial chemist, died of cancer on May 12 at age 59.

With a B.S. in chemistry and math from Monmouth College, in Illinois, in 1970 he earned a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He started his career at Union Carbide. He retired from OSI Specialties in 2002.

Friends remember Ritscher as an innovative chemist with the ability to bring out the best in people and a sincere concern for the personal and professional success of the people who worked for him. In 1999, he won the Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award. He approached his personal life with the same commitment to excellence and passion that he displayed at work. He was an accomplished pianist and singer with a CD of original classical piano compositions. An avid gardener and traveler, he adored wildlife and the natural beauty of the American landscape.

He is survived by his wife, Karen; three children; two grandchildren; and nine step-grandchildren. He joined ACS in 1978.

Elizabeth D. Strange, 61, a food chemist, died on July 6.

Strange received a B.S. in chemistry from Drexel University, Philadelphia; an M.S. in chemistry from St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia; and a Ph.D. in food science and chemistry from New Jersey's Rutgers University. She began her career at the Department of Agriculture's Eastern Regional Research Laboratory “when Kennedy was president, Orville Freeman was secretary of agriculture, and Percy Wells was center director,” she was known to say. Strange retired in 2000.

Meat, milk, and plant natural products like tobacco were the focus of her research. She developed a simple, nondestructive method to measure meat color, defining the changes occurring to liver during freezing and storage that adversely affect its export value. She also described the tissues responsible for gristly restructured steaks and developed two techniques to improve the texture of those foods. Her research included quantifying and modifying caseins, proteins found in milk and cheeses.

She joined ACS in 1973.

Howard A. Strobel, 84, professor emeritus of chemistry at Duke University, died on June 4.

After earning a B.S. in chemistry with highest honors from what is now Washington State University, he began pursuing a Ph.D. in the fall of 1942 at Brown University, Providence, R.I. In July 1943, he started working on the Manhattan Project. At the end of World War II, he returned to school, receiving his doctorate in 1947. Strobel continued at Brown for a postdoctoral fellowship before moving in 1948 to Duke University, where he would spend the rest of his career. For more than 40 years, he was a professor of analytical chemistry, dean, and acting assistant provost.

More than a decade after retirement, he received the J. Calvin Giddings Award for Excellence in Education for his book “Chemical Instrumentation.”

In addition to education, Strobel loved hiking, travel, gardening, and photography. A deacon at his church, he taught Sunday school.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 49 years, Shirley Holcomb, and is survived by three children and two grandchildren. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1941.

K. Omar Zahir, department chair of chemistry and biochemistry at California State University, Northridge, died suddenly of a heart attack on Aug. 26. He was 49.

Zahir received a B.S. from the University of Punjab in Pakistan in 1975 and his Ph.D. from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, in 1986. After postdoctoral study at Iowa State University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he became a professor at Cal State in 1990.

Trained as an inorganic chemist, Zahir's focus shifted to environmental chemistry as the department expanded. Colleagues remember that among his many accomplishments, he made every effort to help and inspire those around him. His commitment to education expanded beyond his department, as he also worked with chemistry teachers in other local schools.

He is survived by his wife and two children. He joined ACS in 1986.

Obituaries are written by Rachel Petkewich. Obituary notices may be sent to r_petkewich@acs.org and should include detailed educational and professional history.