Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Harold Werbin was a good man
Professor Harold Werbin passed away March 24th. I saw his obit in the Dallas Morning News yesterday. I liked him as a person and as a scientist. I didn't appreciate him nearly enough when I was in graduate school or how hard the questions were he was trying to solve. I was young and arrogant back then. Eucaryotic genetics hadn't progressed enough to pin down problems precisely. Werbin was a DNA damage expert and he said that different cancers had different genes damaged or knocked out. Colorectal cancers may have 3-4 genes damaged or knocked out. The precise process still isn't fully known for what makes a cell become cancerous. Sometimes Science progresses in small steps and Werbin led the way in many ways. He was a good man and a good scientist.
