Year: 2018
Type: other
Abstract: His death is a true loss for the biophysics, mathematical biology, and applied mathematics communities.A pioneer in these fields, George fostered our understanding of biological molecules, cells, and tissues as mechanical machines.After finishing high school on Long Island, NY, in 1957, George attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY, and spent a year at sea.In 1961, he continued his studies at Columbia's graduate school and received a PhD in nuclear engineering.At the end of his PhD, George realized that science attracted him more than engineering and he pursued another degree, in biophysics.Shortly after that, he met Aharon Katchalsky, a pioneering Israeli scientist, who saw George's talent and persuaded him to work together with him on the thermodynamics of biological networks.With Katchalsky, George did his postdoctoral work at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and also at the University of California, Berkeley.George fell in love with the vibrant political and scientific scene of the Berkeley campus in the late 1960s but also with the natural beauty of the Bay Area.He stayed at Berkeley as a faculty member for the rest of his life, changing departments as his insatiable curiosity drove him from one biological problem to another.George was very fortunate to be a part of a great generation of scientists who had the audacity and freedom to move between disciplines.Early in his career, he worked on pathbreaking mathematical models of population dynamics and developed the first detailed theories of caste evolution among social insects (with Edward Wilson) and theories of bifurcations to a hierarchy of periodic oscillations and chaos in simple ecological models (with Robert May).At some point in life, every great scientist discovers a unique point of view that reveals a hidden natural order that was previously unknown.George made his discovery in the late 1970s-early 1980s, when he realized that biological molecules, cells, and tissues can be seen as peculiar mechanochemical machines, in which mechanical forces, chemical reactions, and stochastic Brownian movements are intimately coupled.For the next 35 years of his remarkable career,
Source: Molecular Biology of the Cell
Author: Alexander Mogilner
Institution: New York University
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2808168309