Pierre Morell, Ph.D. (1941-2003)
	With his parents

Pierre Morell, a friend of everybody in the international neurochemical community for many years, died a tragically early death on July, 15, 2003, after an illness that lasted only for 6 months. Pierre actively participated in and contributed to the activities of the ISN and ASN for over thirty years in many capacities, such as a Council member, a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurochemistry, and the chair of the program committee for the ISN meeting in Algarve, Portugal, in 1989. His critical and witty mind, always evident in many ISN and ASN meetings he regularly attended, was familiar to all of us. His name is inextricably associated with the biochemistry and biology of myelin. The two editions of the monograph, Myelin, he edited first in 1977 and then in 1984, have been read by experts and beginners alike as the standard reference source.

Pierre began his life in turmoil, or perhaps in a more appropriate term, in Sturm und Drang. In 1941, his parents were among the beneficiaries of the now famous Japanese Consulate official, Chiune Sugihara, in Kaunas, Lithuania, who defied the instruction from his government and kept issuing transit visas through Japan for thousands of Jewish refugees. Pierre always boasted that he traveled through Japan in utero. After several months in Japan, his parents landed in Dominican Republic where Pierre was born in 1941 - another of Pierre's declaration that, luckily for not having been born within the US territory, he could not be drafted for the US Presidency no matter how badly anyone wanted. Eventually, the Morells settled in New York, where his father, Anatol Morell, was Professor of Biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine for many years. He is a distinguished biochemist who, together with Gil Ashwell, discovered one of the earliest known carbohydrate receptors, the Ashwell-Morell hepatic galactose receptor. For many years he was a highly respected figure in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine as the only full professor without a formal doctorate degree. I have no doubt that the flavor of the old-world cultural orientation toward life Pierre always exhibited to discerning eyes came from his parents. His parents were extremely important figures in his life to the very end (Figure). Pierre graduated from the famed Bronx High School of Science, which produced so many distinguished scholars, scientists and Nobel Prize winners during its history. Pierre obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Columbia University and then Ph.D. in biochemistry working on nucleic acids under Julie Murmur at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine during the period when I was a resident and then a postdoc in Neurology department there. Unlike many of us who started with other areas of biochemistry and eventually re-tooled ourselves to molecular biology, Pierre started with molecular biology first and moved on to other areas of biochemistry until he eventually returned to his roots in recent years. His introduction to neurochemistry came while he was a postdoc in the laboratory of Norm Radin in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he started on projects involving biosynthesis of the most characteristic myelin lipid, galactosylceramide. He promptly corrected the textbook notion at that time that galactosylceramide synthesis occurred first by galactosylation of sphingosine to psychosine and then by its acylation to galactosylceramide by demonstrating definitively that galactosylceramide biosynthesis actually occurs through ceramide rather than psychosine. Thus, Pierre was hooked for life to myelin research. Moving back to Einstein as Assistant Professor in Neurology in 1969 (I had moved to the University of Pennsylvania a half year earlier), Pierre, together with his first postdoc, Elvira Costantino-Ceccarini, pushed further the enzymological characterization of galactosylceramide synthase, UDP-galactose:ceramide galactosyltransferase. The work he started at the University of Michigan and continued at Einstein firmly established the basic enzymology and biology of galactosylceramide and its relationship to myelin and myelination.

Moving to the University of North Carolina in 1973, Pierre's work took off in several directions of myelin research. The first edition of the "Morell Myelin book" soon appeared. When one realizes that it was published when Pierre was only 35 years old, one is struck by his precocious development as a scientist and by his organizational skills. An entire generation of biochemists, neuroscientists, and toxicologists around the world have benefited from the clarity, rigor and creativity Pierre brought to his life's work on the biology of myelin. During the 35 years of his active scientific career, Pierre helped to develop and refine our understanding of this essential component of the nervous system-the cellular support that facilitates communication among neurons. Pierre was among the first to recognize the importance of understanding myelin as the sum of its biochemical, genetic and molecular properties. He combined his talents as a biochemist with his intellectual curiosity as a neurobiologist to understand the molecular constituents of myelin, how its component lipids and proteins are transported, assembled, metabolized, and how these molecules might be compromised by disease or environmental hazards. Pierre was among the earliest workers who used mutant mice, such as quaking and jimpy, as a model to demonstrate how abnormalities in single genes can interfere with the function of myelin. We all know that studies of these myelin mutants have exploded in recent years with the advent of the "knockout" technology. Always at the forefront of his field, he integrated new approaches into his career-long pursuit of understanding how the nervous system employs myelin to insure its own function. From the most incisive lipid biochemistry, to genetics, genomics and bioinformatics, Pierre moved his field forward, enthusiastically and tirelessly. His efforts provided new insights into our understanding of demyelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis as well as the hazards of a wide array of toxic substances for the integral functions of the nervous system.

Despite his own remarkable scientific career, Pierre was passionate in helping young neuroscientists develop their own careers. For ten years Pierre was Director of the Curriculum in Neurobiology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the second oldest neuroscience graduate training program in the United States, presiding over an unprecedented growth in neuroscience graduate training and establishing the university as a leader in this effort. During those 10 years, Pierre helped to recruit, train and mentor not only graduate students, but faculty, post-doctoral fellows and the staff whose personal and professional growth was always a clear priority for Pierre. He also tirelessly helped the operation of the UNC Neuroscience Center. Equally memorable are Pierre's humility about his own remarkable scientific accomplishments and his great enthusiasm for the achievements of many junior colleagues who over the years benefited from Pierre's scientific insight and wise advice. Pierre was so dearly loved by the Neurobiology Curriculum students that he was presented with a tuxedo when he retired from its Directorship.

During his very early years as a scientist, I witnessed Pierre occasionally exhibit a trait of aggressiveness and brashness as talented young scientists are expected to do. However, over the years, he matured and tempered those rough edges of youth without losing his essential rigor and critical attitude to science and his disdain against mediocrity. I can attest with personal conviction coming from my countless interactions with him during the years when I was Director of the Neuroscience Center that Pierre was one of the very few in my Center who could place interest of the Center, department and the school ahead of his own personal interest. He was a wise counsel to me and to many others in the university.

Outside of his science, Pierre was also passionate in his pursuit of scuba diving, so much so that he obtained necessary qualifications to teach its art (and also its science) in the undergraduate physical education program of our university. As a long time climber and skier, I always argued with him as to which is more dangerous, snowy winter mountains in bad weather/steep ski slopes or deep underwater inside a cave. As anyone can guess, neither of us could ever win the argument. He enjoyed taking a whole class of university students to Florida Keys for diving lessons. When someone remarked that the whole bunch of attractive coeds were the reason Pierre so enthusiastically taught them how to scuba dive, Pierre's response was, "Yeah, it's a hard work but someone's got to do it".

Pierre's family, his parents, his wife Bonnie and his two children, Sharon and David, lost the most important person in their lives. I personally lost a friend of 35 years, who was instrumental in recruiting me to North Carolina in 1986. Several years ago, Pierre edited for me a special issue of the Neurochemical Research with a very nice preface. He also wrote a similarly nice piece on the occasion of my receiving the Japan Academy Prize last year (ISN/ASN Newsletter, Dec. 2002). I had expected that Pierre would write my obituary but never imagined that I would be writing one for him. We in the neurochemical community have lost a most wonderful leader, colleague and friend. We can only feel fortunate that we all knew Pierre, his scientific accomplishments, his devotion to young generations of neuroscientists, and his mischievous smile, twinkles in his eye, and witty remarks in all aspects of life.

Kunihiko Suzuki