Purdue community mourns the death of Professor Michael Laskowski

Professor Michael Laskowski, 74, suffered an unexpected heart attack on August 2 while on vacation in Grand Teton National Park. He was born March 13, 1930, in Warsaw, Poland. He was active as a messenger in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, and he was wounded protecting a friend from a hand grenade. Separated from his parents by World War II, he walked across Poland with his grandmother, who died on the trip. He joined his uncle with whom he lived until emigrating to the United States in 1947 to reunite with his parents. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1955. In 1957 he married Joan Claire Heyer.
He graduated from Lawrence College magna cum laude in 1950 and received his doctorate from Cornell in 1954. He was hired as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Purdue in 1957, was promoted to full professor at age 35, and remained active in that position until his death.
His contributions to protein chemistry are enormous. He dedicated his research career to the study of the relationship between protein structure and function, particularly of proteinase inhibitors. Some of his most important and pioneering contributions are the discovery of the solvent perturbation technique in the late 1950s that became one of the most widely used techniques in the study of proteins during the next two decades; the discovery of the reactive site of inhibitors and the mechanism of their interaction with serine proteinases, now known as the 'Standard Mechanism'; and the construction of an algorithm for predicting the activity of certain proteins based on additive effects of changes in the amino acid sequence.
He said that ''A scientist who claims a small subfield of science as his personal fief should strive to leave it simpler and more coherent than he originally found it,'' a vision he clearly fulfilled. Together with his father, also a protein biochemist, he received the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award for Biological Sciences in 1977. He received the McCoy Research Award from Purdue in 1975 and the Silver Medal from the Polish Academy of Science (Krakow) in 1989.
He chaired Gordon Conferences, acted as an editor for scientific journals, and served on the scientific advisory boards of pharmaceutical companies. He is the author of 193 research articles. Thirty one students received their doctoral degrees under his direction. A family service will be held in the Tetons. In his memory, the Chemistry Department has established the Michael Laskowski Lectureship Series Fund. Contributions may be made payable to the Purdue Foundation with a note designating the gift to the Michael Laskowski Lectureship Series and sent to Suzy Garner, Director of Development, Department of Chemistry, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907.

September 2004 Science @ Purdue