Archives: Alumni Profiles | Class Notes

Science mourns loss of Miriam Hasson

Miriam Sarah Hasson, 42, died Monday, January 16, 2006, at her home.

Born September 23, 1963, to Dr. Sol and the late Tillie Hasson in Chicago, she resided in Evanston, Ill. and Skokie, Ill. and was a graduate of Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago. After graduation she spent a year in Israel and later attended Yale University, where she was a member of a professional Israeli dance troupe and received her bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry in 1986. She went on to receive her doctorate in biochemistry from the University of California Berkeley in 1991.

She married David Sanders on Aug. 20, 1986, in Glenview, Ill., and he survives. Prof. Sanders is also an Associate Professor in the Biological Sciences department.

Dr. Hasson conducted her postdoctoral research in protein structure determination through x-ray crystallography with Gregory Petsko at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. She joined the biological sciences department at Purdue University in 1995 and later became associate professor. She continued her studies of enzyme evolution, later publishing research on an enzyme that was involved in the pathway of production of the greenhouse gas methane and made findings on how bacteria survive starvation and the utilization of Vitamin B1.

She was a member of the Congregation Sons of Abraham, Purdue Cancer Center, Sephardic Congregation in Evanston and Congregation Yehuda Moshe in Lincolnwood, Ill. She was also a life member of Hadassah.

Surviving with her husband are three sons, Honi, Akiva and Yinnon Sanders, all of West Lafayette; her father, Sol Hasson of Skokie; a brother, Albert Hasson of Northbrook, Ill., and two sisters, Sandy Hasson of Chicago and Rachelle Hasson Miller of Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Donations may be made to the Miriam Hasson Memoral Fund at the Sephardic Congregation or in care of Stephanie Mannon, Director of Development, Purdue Cancer Center, Hansen Life Sciences Research Building Room 145, 201 S. University St., West Lafayette, IN 47907-2064.

Archives: Alumni Profiles | Class Notes