![]() In 2009, I was looking for a chance to apply for a scholarship to pursue my Ph.D training in the US. Dr. Abe gave me that chance and was a great help throughout the application process. I still have all the material he sent me to help with my application. When my application was approved I was finally able to come to the US and study at CRC. The experience completely changed my life. Dr. Abe is a great mentor and often inspired me with his innovative insights. Beyond that, the most unforgettable thing about him is his extremely warm encouragement. I remember when I showed him my first DNA gel while working at CRC; he congratulated me as if I had made a big discovery! It was often that I received enthusiastic comments such as “wonderful,” “fantastic,” “extraordinary,” and “awesome” when we discussed my experimental results. It was that kind of encouragement that helped me through all the ups and downs in my Ph. D. study. Dr. Abe is one of the purest scientists I’ve ever known. I will never forget what happened shortly after I came to work at CRC. One afternoon I inoculated some samples on plates and put them in the incubator and went home. The next morning when I got to CRC and could not find my plates! I asked everyone and they all told me, it must be Dr. Abe who “stole” your plates. He often collects our plates so he can see the results as soon as he wakes up! He keeps this incredible passion for science regardless of time and age. I once asked him the secret of keeping a “young soul” in research. He said, “you are the first and only one in the world to know some new knowledge at the moment you find it, research makes you become unique and important. You contribute to the world and satisfy yourself at the same time, is there anything better than this?” I think his attitude toward science is the most important thing I learned in the US. I’m so lucky and proud to have had the chance to work with Dr. Abe. The Chinese people have a long tradition of respecting teaches, as Confucius has said, “Once your teacher, forever parents.” For me, Dr. Abe is far more than a father (perhaps even grandfather)-like figure. As he celebrates his amazing 95th birthday, I would like to give him best wishes and hope he has good health everyday.
I worked with Abe in the summer of 1961 in Milislav Demerec’s laboratory in Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, LI, NY.
I was a 1st year graduate student from Yale learning bacterial genetics, as it was then called, in Demerec’s lab & Abe was doing a summer sabbatical from Kansas State University, I believe. I learned to treat different cysC mutants of Salmonella with different mutagens to see which mutagens caused reversion mutations of the cysC alleles. I really didn’t understand fully the significance of what I was doing. Abe was doing something similar & he brought all the data together, interpreted them, and wrote a paper which was published in Genetics. It was my 1stpublished paper & I was very grateful to Abe for including me as an author. It was so indicative of his kindness and inclusiveness. In those days, not much was known about lysogeny, i.e., the presence of a prophage. Did the prophage hover over the DNA or was it part of the chromosome. Abe posed the question of whether a prophage “shielded” the cysC region from the effects of the mutagens. Our data indicated that it did not. I thought it was a very creative approach to the question. Whenever I met Abe at scientific conferences, he always greeted me warmly and had time for friendly words. I am so pleased that he is having such a wondeful career and may he continue to enjoy working in the lab just like that time at Brookhaven. Best wishes, Lee Rosner Dr. Judah L. Rosner Dear Dr. Eisenstark : such a thrill to contact you again after quite some time . When i met you in Columbia few years ago i started addressing you "Ab" and i will do so now . Although will never forget those good days when i sat in your classes to learn virology and worked in Bushnell hall third floor with Dick Consigli , yourself and Roma . Abe , Dick left us early but his memories , for ever will remain fresh . Some time back i got a delightfully surprise email from Gordon Lark and exchanged communications for few times . I retired few years ago , however still am active in keeping professional contacts by visiting my shared office in the department and attending most of the seminars . I also keep in touch with friends in Biology , Cancer center and Biochemistry . It was nice to know from Gordon that he was in touch with you ; like yourself he is also active in his research efforts and publications . Abe , it is so heart warming to contact you and will do so again . My wife Ved and i both send our kind regards to you and Joan . Harish
Dear Abe,
Happy Birthday from Joyce, Nick and Paul. If you did not know, I was recruited from NCSU to SUNY-Albany to found a one and only RNA Institute. We have succeeded. www.albany.edu/RNA Joyce is mentoring students, and Nick has a AutoCAD engineering position in Research Triangle Park. Wedding in May. All the best from us all. Warm Regards, Paul With very high regard for Abe as both a scientist and human being. I send my best wishes and congratulations!
Dear Abe,
Congratulations on your 95th. I'm reminded of an occasion about 50 years ago. It was summer and you were in Brookhaven. Dick was in charge of your car (a small Renault?) and we had a horrific hail storm, stones literally the size of golf balls. When it was over, your car had dents all over as if hit with a ball pin hammer. Beautiful round depressions. Dick called in the insurance man who took one look and wrote out a check. Later, after he had left the sun came out and during that warm Kansas summer day all of the dents popped out again. Hope all continues to work as well for you. I'm 83 going on 84 and still doing my latest thing, dog genetics. My life has changed somewhat since Cynthia died and I remarried. A lot more travel--we'll be in France near Bordeaux when you celebrate your 95th. Gordon ![]() Happy birthday Dr Abe! I am so happy to hear that you are still actively researching! I'm sure you're making great discoveries and showing students how to love science as much as you do every single day. I just wanted to let you know that I am currently finishing up my 4th year of med school here at Mizzou and will be a pediatrician in May. I'm so excited! Thanks for all your help and encouragement along the way. Sincerely, Kristin Morrison A Friend Turns 95 and Keeps Working in the Lab
By Elio Schaechter and Stanley Maloy Categories:Odds and Ends. TC: none Abe Eisenstark is an old friend of both of us. Elio was a graduate student in the Midwest when he first met him. Abe was then a young faculty member at nearby university and was an inspiring mentor to whom Elio gravitated straightaway. The story is a bit different for Stanley, who says: “It is funny but I can't even remember when I first met Abe ... it just seems like we have always known each other.“ Some seven decades later no less, Abe is still at it, helping younger people inside and outside the lab. He is turning 95 this year and is continuing to go to the lab every day where he carries out inspired and challenging research. He is now working on how Salmonella strains may have a role to play in cancer therapy. These bacteria home in on mouse cancers and colonize them, leading to death of the tumor. Obviously, this is not a simple matter, partly because mutants that may be pathogenic to the host may arise. But if someone is equipped to study such questions, it is distinctly Abe. We wouldn't bet against him coming up with a useful modality to treat cancer. For those in the know, Abe and Salmonella are two closely tied biological entities. He has worked on this organisms most of his life, dealing with basic and applied question of its genetics, with a special yen for the effects of radiation. More recently, he has been studying Salmonella evolution by examining old archived culture collections of both bacterial strains and their phages. Given his longevity, you could readily assume that Abe has taken to scientific work with singular passion. You would be right. Few people in our acquaintance have displayed greater love for science. So, we salute you, Abe, and wish you copious and exciting results for years to come. Abe,
I wish you the happiest birthday, and a great year to follow. As always, your are inspirational to me, and I hope you keep going strong for a long time. I am in Israel now. I came for a month to be with my mom, whose health is failing. I ended up experiencing the war here. Not fun. I have been sending "reflections" to the Jewish community, and I am attaching them to this note. I felt like sharing some of the feelings from the ground, and put a face on the conflict. Be well, Hi to Joan, and happy birthday. Hannah ![]() Abe Eisenstark, Mentor and Friend Mary Ann Turner, PhD (1983) I met Abe back in 1978 when I was a Technician at Argonne National Laboratory where we studied the effects of far and near ultraviolet (FUV, NUV) radiation on DNA repair and mutagenesis. My boss, Robert (Bob) Webb, advised me of a collaboration that Argonne had with a number of universities After interviewing almost every professor interested in DNA repair and mutagenesis, I applied to the University of Missouri, Columbia. I really made the decision to apply based on the man who would be my Major Professor, Dr. A. Eisenstark. He had the kindest eyes and I thought he would be both a great mentor and a powerful advocate. I was correct. At the end of my first year in graduate school, in 1980, I was involved in a very serious car accident. I suffered a head injury and fractures in all of the major bones in my right leg. Dr. Eisenstark and his wife were out of the country on one of their famous vacations. After a month in hospital, the doctors said I could go home if I had a team of people in place to take care of me. I didn’t know what to do or whom to ask about my care. Fortunately, several people from my church and from graduate school came to visit. They were going to be the team of people who took care of me. Besides a host of other wonderful friends, Dr. Eisenstark, Chairman of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, met me in the hospital after physical therapy each day and pushed me the half mile from the hospital to the lab. For the next year and beyond, Dr. Eisenstark was there for me every day. He organized my academic care and made sure I was still on target with my research and classes in spite of the accident. I can never thank Abe enough and I will forever remember his advocacy and unwavering friendship. My experience in graduate school was certainly made easier because of Abe. After a time, I healed and went on to receive my PhD in 1983. After Missouri, I completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cancer Biology at the University of California, Berkeley where I studied the SOS Response. I taught for a year at the University of Maryland and then, returned to perform research on HPV-induced cancers at the University of California, San Francisco. After many years at UCSF, I went to Baylor College of Medicine to study protein regulation in HIV infection. Finally, I moved from the research arena to pharmaceuticals where I presented studies to physicians and research scientists about the latest development in specific areas such as osteoporosis, pain, and Multiple Sclerosis. No matter where I am, I always look forward to the yearly letter from Abe telling about his research, travels, and family. And, I always remember the kind eyes of a man who became a great friend. HAPPY 95TH BIRTHDAY ABE!!
Please pass my congratulations and best wishes to Abe. He's got 11 years on me, but seems to be more vigorous.
Dick F. ![]() One day I was working at CRC on a Saturday. It was my first internship with Dr. Abe. He showed up in his weekend dress and worked in his office. I shared some Hershey bars with him. I knew then that he was very devoted to his work. I had never had a chance to get to know him yet. I would learn over the years, that he kept no working hours, he worked all the time! Emails would still be flying into my inbox at 10pm with questions about projects. Vacations didn’t mean he quit working either! I called him a few times while he was on vacation to ask him questions. He always took my calls and emails. I was in the lab doing experiments while he was directing me from California! One memory that sticks out for me was walking into the lab and finding my work to have disappeared. That meant one thing; Dr. Abe had beaten me to it! I would walk to his office to discover he was observing it. We would discuss the results and I would walk away laughing to myself. On the mornings that I would beat Dr. Abe to the lab, he would come into the lab to say “Good Morning, Jacki”. “What are you working on today?” Then he would say hello to each of my girls that were working on the bench nearby. They loved to visit his office and ask him about his paintings. He patiently would tell them about each one and why he painted it. They also got excited about taking his artwork to be displayed in the art contest downtown. The next day, we went and looked at all the displays and voted for Dr. Abe’s work! They really enjoyed his kind and gentle ways. There are too many memories of working with Dr. Abe to summarize in a few paragraphs. He has touched so many people in so many ways. Happy 95th Birthday, Dr. Abe. Jacki KianMehr with Daughters: Ariana KianMehr Ayla KianMehr Dear Abe:
It is unimagable for you to be almost 95, as you were much younger when we first met about 50 years ago. I recall your university pathway through the American Midwest, from the University of Illinois (where you were influenced by Martha Baylor, who later was responsible for seducing me to a lifetime of molecular microbiology) and later to Manhattan (where if I recall correctly you and Gordon Lark also encouraged me) and from Manhattan you moved to Columbia both west of the Mississippi and not in NYC. We interacted during my 20 years at Washington University (when I was young!). Congratulations. Salmonella typhimurium LT2 is one of my favorite bacteria. [It was renamed confusingly from work of Peter Reeves in Sydney Australia another of your homes in an earlier time.] This wonderful occasion brings back another Missouri memory: when I started working with S. typhimurium LT2 at WashU in 1966, the mouse people (in particular Florence Moog) expressed fear that I would spread mouse typhoid through their animal colony. You have stayed with LT2 with many changes in emphasis of interest. In this day when there is strong pressure on young people to do translational research, it is worthwhile to educate them on the importance of chasing their dreams. Two earlier Mizzou geneticists who did that come to mind, Barbara McClintock and Frank Stahl, neither of whom was appreciated or stayed long at Mizzou. Abe, you were a model also for concerned hands-on human administration, mostly in your Division of Biological Sciences and later (after what some called retirement) at the Cancer Research Center. Before I came to Chicago in 1986 as Head of the UIC Department of Microbiology and Immunology, I drove one day to Mizzou to gain wisdom and advice from you and from Richard Finkelstein (another Gram negative bacterial guy) in your Department of Microbiology. As you know, I have always been long-winded, but I follow you now at 78 in another manner: I come to UIC (more office than lab, sadly; the lab is still better) 7 days a week and I send this on a Sunday afternoon. But I need to survive for another 17 years and still come in for useful work each day. Life of molecular microbiology has been joyful for more than half a century and we have been lucky to be around and to participate in small ways during all that time. And it continues to change in amazing ways. For example, I think I read last week of a proposal to use the bacterial CRISPR knockout system to target and eliminate chromosome-integrated HIV. It is a long shot; but a good one. CRISPR certainly should be used in the Mizzou Cancer Research Center in still other ways. I hope soon that we get a chance to visit you and Joan in Columbia. In a month I will be close by, as my youngest kid drags his aged father along on a Clean the Merrimac River canoeing weekend about ½ way between St. Louis and Columbia. However, on your 95th birthday in September, Le and I will be in transit to St. Petersburg (maybe flying over Warsaw but avoiding Ukrainian airspace) followed by 2 weeks teaching modern molecular microbiology in Siberia. Keep working! It is more fun than anything else. Simon Silver To: My respected Professor Abraham Eisenstark,
On the occasion of your 95th Birthday I am touched by the information that you have recently celebrated your 95th birthday. May God give you even longer life so that you can continue serving science even longer time to come. At this occasion I wish to add few things from my memory for you to add to your autobiography whenever you decide to write. As already acknowledged in my book on Neurodegenerative diseases published by Springer in 2012 that you are one of the three professors in this world who have played major roles in my academic careers. If I summarize, it started in 1967/68 when I first met you at the Leicester University and you taught me the microbiological techniques like a father teaches his son how to take the first step of his walk. Then in 1973 I was appointed as lecturer here in UK. Our communication started when I learnt that your wife collected postage stamps and British Philatelic had printed Bicentennial stamps on Leicester University. I sent you a set and in reply you wrote me on June 10, 1976 (I am still retaining that letter) to send you another set of this stamps and enclosed a $ note. I did send the stamp but treasured the $ note which is still with me as a token of appreciation. The letter also stated that in the near future you will have a vacancy for a Post-doc in your laboratory and at any time if I wish to visit your lab you will be happy to receive me. That invitation led me to enter a major breakthrough of my academic career and to cut the story short, I visited your laboratory in 1978 for about 10 months (that much sabbatical I could get then). In those 10 months I made a major breakthrough to find the reason for the phage T7 killed by Near UV and hydrogen peroxide. It was the production of superoxide anions having lethal effect on the phage. You presented the work at the next Microbiological Society in US. It must be very unusual of me and a valuable year that from the work I did in your lab for 10 months resulted in 4 papers published e.g. Thymidine sensitivity ….E. coli: MGG 172, 229, 1979 Isolation and analysis ….endoneclease I constitutively: J. Gen. Microbiol, 117, 419,1980 Then in 1998 we published the review article in the prestigious Journal of Microbiological Reviews on Thymineless death, Microbiol Rev. 52, 591, 1998 During 1978 and 1979 I managed to come to your laboratory 3 more times by using my Easter and summer holidays as I was unable to get any more sabbatical so soon. Then when you moved to Cancer Research Centre in Columbia, I visited once more to your laboratory for a short visit which was very enjoyable. Dear Abe, I consider very lucky to meet with you at Leicester and subsequent, under your kind supervision, changing of my research direction which turned out to be extremely important topic still now. Due to continuing my interest in this topic I managed to publish a number of very important research papers; the total publications reached to about 55. Furthermore, this is what I know the other side of you. you are so kind, loving and caring, soft spoken (I wonder if ever you became angry on anybody) non-prejudicial, and very knowledgeable and hardworking scientist who has given a lot of valuable services to the scientific community and hoping to come more in the future. My very best wishes go for your good health and long life. Shamim Ahmad |