Biophysical Society Bulletin | January 2022

InMemoriam

Kenneth C. Holmes

Early inmy career I was in awe of Ken and his generation of scientists who had set the stage for muscle biology in the 20th century. His 1965 Nature paper with Richard T. Tregear and Michael K. Reedy is one of the classic papers in the muscle field and provided the first real insights into how the myosin proteinmight generate force andmovement. Later inmy career I was privileged to become friends with Ken. This allowedme to understand the depth of Ken’s thinking about important scientific questions, as well as his ability to grasp the potential for new techniques to answer those questions. Ken hadmany interests and talents be- yond science, including being an avid rower, a passionate lover of music, and being gifted with a great singing voice. Ken will long be remembered for his wit, his scientific generosity, and his tremen- dous insights into complex biological problems. He is survived by his talented family and by the many scientists he launched from the Max Planck in Heidelberg who continue to build Ken’s scientific legacy. — H. Lee Sweeney Ned Seeman On November 16, 2021, we lost a dear friend, colleague, fellow Biophysical Journal Editor, and true innovator. Ned Seeman (1945–2021) lost his battle against a variety of illnesses that started a few years ago and was exacerbated by COVID-19. Throughout these difficult times, Ned kept his focus on the work he loved, maintaining contact with colleagues and students on Zoom. Recognized as the father of DNA nanotech- nology, Ned pioneered research that reflects a successful mar- riage of his unique creativity and superb grounding in the physical andmathematical sciences. From the art of M.C. Escher to DNA knots to robots andmedical applications, Ned’s vision was broad while his craft was meticulous. Besides his unique innovation in science, Ned is remembered by his friends and colleagues as a kind-hearted “tough guy”who spoke the unfiltered truth, fought for what he believed in, and disregarded convention or fashion. Ned’s directness and courage were a breath of fresh air in an increasingly bureaucratic world. He saw through people with hid- den or unfair agendas, be they on our campus or inWashington, DC. He had no problem telling themwhat he thought and never considered any possible consequence. A true polymath, Ned was knowledgeable and happy to discuss politics, literature, art, or theater anytime. He was as knowledge- able about Russian literature and Chinese restaurants as he was in DNA topology, and this made him a wonderful conversation partner, colleague, and friend. Born in Chicago on December 16, 1945, Ned was an only child in a middle-class Jewish family. His father sold furs and his mother was an elementary school teach- er. Ned was drawn tomath and science early on, and later

The muscle and structural biology communities lost one of their most memorable and influential scientists with the passing of Kenneth C. Holmes (1934–2021) on November 2, 2021 in Heidelberg, Germany. Ken was born in London in 1934. He obtained his B.A. at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and his PhD in 1959 at Birkbeck College London. Ken began his PhDwork with Rosalind Franklin on the structure of tobaccomosaic virus. Following the death of Franklin, Ken completed his work with Aaron Klug . Like many of

Kenneth C. Holmes

his peers, Ken was fascinated by the near-crystalline array of the muscle sarcomere and the ability of that array to contract and generate force. During Ken’s post-doctoral fellowship with Don Caspar at Boston Children’s Hospital, Ken began to work on muscle structure with Carolyn Cohen . Ken next joined the newly opened Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the Univerrsity of Cambridge, where he developed X-ray approaches for the study of muscle fiber structures. During this time, he worked with Hugh Huxley and J.D. Pringle onmuscle structure. Ken thus had launched on a career path to understand howmuscle works. In 1968, Ken opened the Department of Biophysics at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, where he performed his most important work and remained as director until retiring in 2003. Ken understood that solving the structures that he and others were interested in would require a source of high-intensity X-rays. Ken was perhaps the first person to rec- ognize the potential of synchrotrons to provide this X-ray source. He and his colleague, Gerd Rosenbaum , carried out the work to make this insight a reality. Ken founded a laboratory to exploit synchrotron radiation as an X-ray source at the Deutsches Elek- tronen-Synchrotron (DESY) facility in Hamburg, Germany. This opened the door for an explosion in X-ray crystallography. While this might be Ken’s greatest contribution to structural biology, he went on to solve the first G-actin structure and used it, combined with data fromX-ray diffraction of muscle fibers, to develop a model of F-actin, which later structures proved to be quite accu- rate. Ken also was the first to fully realize the implications of the earliest myosin structures coming from Ivan Rayment ’s laboratory and used those structures tomodel the myosin powerstroke in support of the swinging lever armhypothesis for howmyosin moves on F-actin. Ken was recognized for his many contributions with the Gabor Medal of the Royal Society, the European Science Foundation’s European Latsis Prize, and the Gregori Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

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