Obituaries

March 13, 2023: Dr. Tadashi Inagami. Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry Dr. Tadashi Inagami passed away on Monday, March 13, 2023. Inagami, who came to Vanderbilt in 1966, was the first person to purify renal and extrarenal renins; to determine the structure of extrarenal renin; and to clone atrial natriuretic peptide (ANF) and angiotensin II type 1 and 2 receptors and their variants. He trained more than 100 postdoctoral fellows and 12 graduate students and published more than 520 original papers and 147 review articles. He was an invited speaker of numerous scientific societies and received a number of awards, including a Fulbright-Munds Fellowship, a Japan National Academy award, a Humboldt Society Visiting Professorship Award, a Belgian Foreign Ministry Research Award, the Ciba Award of the High Blood Pressure Research Council, the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Heart Association and a MERIT Award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the NIH. Read more.

March 13, 2023: Dr. Conrad Wagner. Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry Dr. Conrad “Connie” Wagner passed away on Monday, March 13, 2023. Wagner served Vanderbilt for more than 50 years. In his post-military professional life, he progressed from his start as a postdoctoral student in the laboratory of Earl Stadtman to being named assistant professor in 1961, associate professor in 1968 and professor in 1975. He acted as interim chair of the Department of Biochemistry from 1991 to 1992. For more than a half-century, his research in nutritional science focused on folate, vitamins and one-carbon metabolism compounds. This work has resulted in merit awards, fellowships, invited speakerships, government funding and 170 publications and reviews. He was a binding link between Vanderbilt University and the Veteran’s Administration Hospital, encouraging collaboration within that association, serving as chief of the VA Biochemistry Research Unit and as associate chief of staff for research at the VA.  Read more.  View announcement.

November 7, 2021: Dr. Michael Waterman. Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry Dr. Michael Waterman passed away on Sunday, November 7, 2021. He is survived by his wife Mimi and children. Dr. Waterman was chair of the Department of Biochemistry from 1992 to 2010. The department thrived under Mike’s leadership as he hired many faculty into the department and helped establish several centers, including the Center for Structural Biology, the Mass Spectrometry Research Center, and the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology. His own research focused on P450 enzymes. He published over 300 manuscripts on this topic and trained many students and post-doctoral fellows. He had a big impact on Vanderbilt and on Biochemistry. Read more   ASBMB Memoriam   ICC P450 Meeting Obituary

July 25, 2017: Dr. H. Alex Brown, the Bixler-Johnson-Mayes Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, age 56, of Franklin, TN. Read more

June 18, 2015: Dr. Richard Neil Armstrong, Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry and Editor of the ACS journal Biochemistry, age 66, of Brentwood, died at Vanderbilt Medical Center, after a brief illness. Read announcements here.

April 28, 2015:  Dr. David Ong, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, passed away on April 25, 2015. A retrospective remembrance may be read online here: obituary by Dr. Wagner and article (VU Reporter).

March, 2015:  Dr. Oscar Touster, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, passed away in March 2015. A retrospective piece in memoriam is available online here.  Additionally, some of his colleagues have contributed some kind words which may be referenced here.  Read 1963 Vanderbilt announcement of new Department of Molecular Biology here.

June 11, 2013: Dr. Leon W. Cunningham, 85, died Saturday, June 8, a day before his 86th birthday. His wife of 59 years, Jean Roberta Swingle Cunningham, died in 2007. Dr. Cunningham was well known for his contributions to the fields of enzyme chemistry, glycoproteins and connective tissue biochemistry, and for his commitment to the department and to the graduate students he mentored. Read more  Read obituary