Prof. Masatsune Kainosho March 10, 1942 – December 28, 2025
The Magnetic Resonance community mourns the passing of ISMAR Fellow Prof. Masatsune (Kai) Kainosho on December 28, 2025, at the age of 83. Kai was a pioneer in the heteronuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and isotope labeling of biomolecules, a beacon of Japanese friendliness, hospitality and humor - and a very good friend to many of us.
Kai is survived by his wife Mitsue, his daughter Akiko, her husband Susumu, and his younger sister Teiko. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
The following tribute was written by Prof. Peter E. Wright and Prof. Mitsuhiko Ikura
Masatsune Kainosho, known as Kai to his friends and colleagues, passed away suddenly due to a cerebral hemorrhage on December 28, 2025. Kai was a charming and friendly person who made profound contributions to biomolecular NMR. Kai’s passing was too sudden and too early, which led to a huge wave of shock across our scientific community.
Kai was a pioneer and an international leader in the development of isotope labeling technologies for application in biomolecular NMR. Building on his training as an organic chemist, Kai developed methods for both uniform and stereospecific deuteration of lipids, amino acids, and nucleic acids for simplification and assignment of NMR spectra. In the early 1980s, Kai was already publishing papers on 13C labeling of a protein called Streptomyces Subtilisin Inhibitor (SSI), in an era where homonuclear proton NMR was the primary tool for studies of proteins. He demonstrated the power of isotope-labeling techniques by capturing various internal motions of bulky amino acids such as methionine, phenylalanine, and tryptophan in proteins. In a pioneering contribution in 1982, he introduced the novel concept of making sequence specific assignments in protein spectra on the basis of the scalar coupling between 13CO and the amide 15N resonance of the next amino acid in the protein sequence. This pioneering work formed the conceptual basis for the later development of methods for sequence specific assignment of the 3D spectra of uniformly 15N, 13C labeled proteins by scalar magnetization transfer through the peptide bond.
Kai persistently pushed the isotope-aided NMR technology to study larger proteins. In a major advance, Kai introduced stereo-array isotope labeling (SAIL) in early 2000. In this innovative and sophisticated technology, amino acids are chemically and enzymatically synthesized with an optimal stereospecific and regiospecific pattern of stable isotopes and incorporated into proteins using cell-free expression technologies. SAIL overcomes problems arising from broad and overlapping resonances and opens the way to NMR structural studies of large soluble proteins and membrane proteins. The SAIL amino acids preserve the 13C-13C and 13C-15N connectivities to facilitate TROSY-based resonance assignments. This was a remarkable achievement in the field and the paper entitled “Optimal isotope labelling for protein structure determinations” was published in Nature in 2006. To enhance access to SAIL technology world-wide, Kai founded a company to synthesize and distribute these valuable SAIL labeled amino acids. Kai also collaborated with many international scientists, who were interested in using his technology to answer specific scientific questions. His worldwide collaborations are testimony to his personality and philosophy – “no borders in science”. Kai was invited to speak at numerous conferences and meetings across the globe and he valued and truly enjoyed interactions with scientists from all over the world. Kai was truly an international scholar.
Kai was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1942. He received a B.Sc. in 1964 and Ph.D. in 1970 from Tokyo Metropolitan University (TMU). After graduation, Kai worked as a researcher at Ajinomoto Co. Ltd. from 1964 to 1980. Ajinomoto is famous for producing glutamic acid (“umami” component) and many other amino acids, and Kai became familiar with fermentation technology and amino acid synthesis during this period. In 1973, Kai received an opportunity to go abroad for sabbatical and worked in the laboratory of Professor Sunney Chan at Caltech, where he studied lipid dynamics using NMR. In 1980, Kai was appointed as an Associate Professor at TMU and subsequently became a Full Professor in 1992. He retired from TMU in 2005. After his retirement, Kai continued to be very active in research: he was appointed as ‘Specially Appointed’ Professor at Nagoya University (2006-2007) and at TMU (2007-2008) where he conducted many seminal studies using his SAIL technology. Through his long-time isotope research, Kai founded the SAIL Technology Inc. in 2004, initially serving as Scientific Director and later as a Scientific Advisor. Kai was also a Visiting Professor at Purdue University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and J. W. Goethe University. Kai’s contributions to the biological NMR community are exceptional: he organized many meetings including ICMRBS in 1988 in Tokyo and again in 2016 in Kyoto, as well as Asia-Pacific NMR Symposia over two decades. Kai was a recipient of The Chemical Society of Japan Award in 2007, was named an Honorary Member of the NMR Society of Japan in 2010 and was elected as an ISMAR Fellow in 2008. Kai played a long-standing leadership role in the Japanese NMR community, and his loss was huge and shocking to many of our friends and colleagues in Japan. His entire 61-year professional career was dedicated to science, and especially to the field of biomolecular NMR.
Kai is survived by his beloved wife Mitsue, his daughter Akiko and her husband Susumu, and his younger sister Teiko. He will be forever cherished by his grandchildren Kisuke and Keita. Kai was truly a family-oriented person - his marriage with Mitsue lasted over 50 years and Kai was frequently accompanied by Mitsue at international conferences and meetings. We enjoyed so many occasions with Kai and Mitsue at a dinner table, and we cannot forget wonderful memories with him and his big smile over great meals! Kai was an enthusiastic food lover and enjoyed exploring many international, sometimes exotic cuisines whenever and wherever he had a chance.
Kai’s passing is a profound loss to science and to his many friends and collaborators. He will be remembered for his passion and joy for science and as a warm, generous and patient man, who was greatly respected and admired by his colleagues and friends. Kai was a dear friend to us, the authors, and to many in the biomolecular NMR community. He will be sorely missed.
Peter E. Wrighta and Mitsuhiko Ikurab
aDepartment of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA92037. Email: wright@scripps.edu
bPrincess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network and Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Email: mitsu.ikura@uhn.ca
Prof. James Feeney August, 7 1936 – October 5, 2025
The Magnetic Resonance community mourns the passing of ISMAR Fellow Prof. James Feeney on October 5, 2025, at the age of 89.
Jim worked for many years as a preeminent scientist at the Medical Research Council in London. His career at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) was defined by his mastery of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and its application to structural biology already in very early times. He held several key leadership positions during his tenure, including the role of Centre Controller at the MRC Biomedical NMR Centre and Head of the Molecular Structure Division from 1989 to 2001. His research was instrumental in advancing the understanding of biomolecular structure and the interactions of molecules with proteins.
Prior to his distinguished career in medical research, Feeney honed his expertise in the private sector at Varian Associates, a manufacturer of scientific instruments. This diverse background informed his scholarly work and provided a unique perspective that enriched his contributions to the scientific community. His research focused on critical areas, such as the binding of ligands to enzymes like dihydrofolate reductase.
Jim was coauthor of the widely known NMR textbook Emsley, Feeney, Sutcliff: High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (Pergamon Press, 1966). This book eventually evolved into the journal Progress in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, which Jim co-founded in 1966 and co-edited until 2012 (1), and which comprehensively covers NMR advances, together with the associated developments in theory and applications until today.
Feeney's legacy is that of a dedicated and influential scientist who specialized in NMR technology at NIMR for many years. His meticulous and impactful research laid important groundwork in the field of molecular structure, leaving an enduring mark on the scientific world.
He is survived by his wife Margery and his four children Cathy, Claire, Adrian and Mark. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
Annalisa Pastore
Stephan Grzesiek
(1) Emsley, J. Feeney, Fifty years of “Progress in NMR Spectroscopy” – An editorial from the founding Editors, Progress in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy 94–95 (2016) A1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnmrs.2016.05.001.
Ted Becker (l.) with Dennis Torchia (r.) at NIH 1986
Dr. Edwin D. Becker 3 May 1930 – 4 August 2025
ISMAR mourns the passing of Dr. Edwin (Ted) D. Becker, former Secretary General of ISMAR and ISMAR Fellow. Ted was a dedicated leader, teacher and effective advocate of Magnetic Resonance worldwide and dear friend to many of us.
He is survived by his wife, Suzanne, and his two children, Carl and Lynn.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
Stephan Grzesiek
ISMAR President
The following tribute was written by Drs. Ad Bax and Robert Tycko
With great sadness, we inform you that our colleague and friend Ted Becker passed away on August 4, a few months after his 95th birthday. With his passing, the magnetic resonance community has lost a passionate leader and supporter who dedicated much of his career to helping others.
Ted received his Ph.D. in chemistry from U.C. Berkeley in 1955. Heavily recruited, wined and dined by multiple major companies, Ted also visited the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and decided that this institution would allow him to make more meaningful contributions to the world. He was one of the first physical chemists at the NIH, initially focused on Raman spectroscopy. Ted switched his focus to NMR when the first commercial instrumentation became available in the late 1950s, in particular after receiving delivery of the “workhorse” Varian-A60 spectrometer. His research covered a broad area, ranging from elegant early pulse sequence development, including the classic DEFT scheme for enhancing sensitivity of Fourier transform NMR, improved “rapid scan” FT technology, as well as the study of hydrogen bonding, molecular self-assembly, and hemoglobin gelation kinetics related to sickle cell disease.
Frustrated by the bureaucracy that impeded scientific progress at the NIH, in 1980 Ted took on the task of facilitating research as Associate Director for Research Services at the NIH. His responsibilities as Associate Director encompassed much of the day-by-day operations, including building management, security and, most importantly, procurement which was the prototypically slow grinding bureaucratic machinery that had proven to be a bottleneck in so many projects. Against all odds, he succeeded in dramatically reducing the paperwork required for small purchases, a change that positively impacted the entire NIH research community.
Ted was instrumental in attracting Ad Bax to the NIH to fill the vacancy that resulted from his move to the high-intensity administrative position. After returning to the Laboratory of Chemical Physics in 1988, Ted also played a major role in the hiring of Robert Tycko, while providing very useful “insider advice” during Rob’s early years at the NIH. By his genuine and unassuming interest in their research and selfless sharing of his profound knowledge, he also very much inspired and encouraged the thriving community of the many postdocs and PhD students at NIH.
Four Decades of NMR at NIH - October 4, 1996. Front (l-r): Ted Becker, Ad Bax, Alex Pines. Back (I-1): Rod Wasylishen, Dennis Torchia, Regitze Vold, Tom Farrar
In the early 1980s, Ted foresaw the profound impact that NMR technology would have on medicine. At a time when Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) were still emerging techniques, Ted recognized their potential for non-invasive diagnosis and research. The NIH campus was already home to exceptional scientific expertise. Yet the hurdles were formidable: the technology was expensive, and the powerful magnets used in MRI demanded large, dedicated spaces—especially challenging to find at the NIH. Rather than let these obstacles deter progress, Ted envisioned a cooperative solution. He proposed the creation of a centralized NMR research center that would serve the needs of multiple Institutes, a concept that was nearly unheard of at the time. Thanks to his scientific credibility and personal integrity, Institutes across the NIH trusted Ted’s leadership. The Center has hosted and continues to host many of the international leaders in MRI and MRS, including Robert Balaban, Alan Koretsky, David Hoult, Denis LeBihan, Chrit Moonen, Peter van Zijl, Jeff Duyn, and many others. Ted’s calm and patient demeanor invariably was key in fostering collaborations even when the available resources were too few to serve the rapid rise in demand for MRI-based work.
Ted was a close friend of ISMAR for its entire existence. He served as Secretary of its Division of Biology and Medicine from 1986-1989, and on the ISMAR Council from 1990-1999. In 2005, he stepped in as Secretary General to help bring ISMAR back from the brink at a time when administrative and financial aspects of the Society were at a low point. Infusing new energy into ISMAR, he carried out an enormous amount of hands-on work to get its books in order, and to regain tax exempt status. He also collected a complete set of ISMAR’s then-defunct journal “Bulletin of Magnetic Resonance” and converted it to pdf-format, now accessible from the ISMAR website, which represents a true historical treasure of information.
More than anyone, Ted has devoted most of his life to helping his scientific colleagues, both at the NIH, in the world-wide NMR community, and beyond that in the international chemistry community. He chaired and co-chaired numerous scientific conferences, including the 1969 ENC, the 1996 ICMRBS, and a host of smaller meetings. In the broader chemical community, he served as Chair of the International Activities Committee of the American Chemical Society, from 1993-95. He also took on the role of Secretary-General of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), a very labor-intensive task that among other functions establishes nomenclature rules and guidelines. This tedious but essential work continues to serve the entire chemistry community.
Ted loved teaching the next generations of scientists, and for nearly 40 years he taught physical chemistry at both Georgetown University and the FAES Graduate School at the NIH. He published over 100 papers in the area of molecular spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance. He also authored two popular NMR textbooks, including three editions of High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Academic Press) and, in 1971 with Tom Farrar, the thin but classic text Pulse and Fourier Transform NMR (Academic Press). Ted also was the principal editor for Volume 1 of the Encyclopedia of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: Historical Perspectives (Wiley, 1995) that contains a treasure of personal perspectives on the early stages of our field.
We highly recommend Ted’s article in Analytical Chemistry from 1993, entitled “A Brief History of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance” https://doi.org/10.1021/ac00054a716, to all ISMAR members. This article is an excellent demonstration of Ted’s deep and broad appreciation for all aspects of NMR, as well as the clarity of his writing and thinking. The article also puts the many technological advances and novel developments in applications that occurred during Ted’s career in a proper and coherent perspective.
Ted received numerous recognitions for his work, including the 1966 Coblentz Memorial Prize in Chemical Spectroscopy; the 1971 Washington Academy of Sciences Award in Physical Sciences; he became an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1988; Inaugural Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2009); a Foreign Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of India in 1992; and he received the prestigious Distinguished Service Award in Analytical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 2006.
Ted’s love for chocolate was almost legendary. When he was Associate Director, overlapping the Unabomber era, he returned from a meeting to find his assistants nervously and carefully unwrapping a package that had been delivered by a tall, unshaven man in a trench coat, who had walked onto the then unguarded campus and into Building 1. The man stated in an Eastern European accent "this is for Dr. Becker", turned and left. It turned out the package contained some of the finest European chocolates which somebody had asked this man to deliver when they learned that he would be visiting Bethesda.
Ted’s departure leaves us with a large and painful void, but also with great memories and numerous examples of how patience and persuasion are more effective than stomping feet or raising voices. Ted loved and breathed NMR and as a Society we continue to benefit from the enormous amount of work he carried out so selflessly to help others.
Prof. Sunney Ignatius Chan 5 October 1936 – 5 May 2025
ISMAR mourns the passing of Prof. Sunney I. Chan, an ISMAR Fellow that contributed to fields of both NMR and EPR. He died in Taiwan on May 5, 2025 at the age of 88.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
The following tribute was written by Prof. James Prestegard
Sunney was born in San Francisco, had his early education in a Jesuit School in Hong Kong and then returned to the U.S. for pursuit of his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, both at the University of California, Berkeley. He subsequently pursued postdoctoral studies at Harvard with Norman Ramsey. This was his introduction to magnetic resonance, although in the gas phase, and not with the high field magnets that dominate today’s research. This pathway engendered him with a love for science, a respect for humanity and a desire to educate that would stay with him throughout his career.
Chan group and Sunney (right front) outside Crellin Lab at Caltech – 1967
Sunney’s academic career began as an Assistant Professor at the University of California Riverside, but he soon moved to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he rose to occupy the George Grant Hoag Professorship in Biophysical Chemistry. These years at Caltech were amazingly productive with many research contributions involving the application of both NMR and EPR to systems of biological importance. His early work involved using NMR to characterize molecular interactions underlying the formation of nucleic acid helices and lipid bilayers. More recently, he used EPR to characterize electron transport by cytochrome oxidase and catalysis by methane monooxygenase. He also trained graduate students, postdocs and visiting scientists; a number that Sunney estimated to be over 200 in 20091. His interest in education extended to undergraduates as well. In fact, he and his wife, Irene, lived on campus and Sunney served as “Master of Student Housing” for a time. Sunney’s son, Michael, also followed Sunney into an academic career. Michael served as Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The Ohio State University until his move to the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2012. There he accepted a role as Director of Life Sciences and is currently Professor of Life Sciences. Sunney was very proud of both Michael and his own role in educating future scientists.
Sunney retired from Caltech in the late 90’s and became Professor Emeritus in 2002. However, his achievements did not stop at that point. He and Irene moved to Taiwan with the goal of enhancing Taiwan's academic reputation and international competitiveness. Sunney set up research teams at both Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University. In Taiwan he trained many more students and extended his work on methane monooxygenase to the development of a synthetic catalyst capable of efficient conversion of methane into methanol. In 2021 he was recognized for his efforts by the award of Taiwan’s Presidential Science Award, the highest honor given to scientists in Taiwan. Sunney, and his future contributions to science will be sorely missed.
ISMAR mourns the passing of Prof. Isao Ando on February 2, 2025, at the age of 83.
Prof. Ando was a pioneer in the solid-state NMR analysis of polymer crystals. In particular, he established the correlation between 13C chemical shifts of α- and β-carbons and main-chain dihedral angles in peptides. He also developed high-field gradient NMR systems and methods for studying diffusion processes in polymer gels and liquid crystals.
Prof. Ando was professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and esteemed ISMAR Fellow.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
The following tribute was written by Prof. Masatsune Kainosho and Prof. Tetsuo Asakura
Professor Ando earned his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Science and Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1972, where he began his academic career as an assistant in the Department of Polymer Engineering. In 1976, he spent a formative year as a postdoctoral research fellow in Professor Gutowsky’s laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Upon returning to Japan, he was appointed associate professor in 1982 and promoted to full professor in 1988 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Throughout his distinguished career, Professor Ando made pioneering contributions to the application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy in polymer science. His work encompassed a wide range of topics, including the development of NMR chemical shift and structural analysis methods for polymers; high-precision structural and dynamic analyses of polymer systems; theoretical developments in NMR chemical shift for one-, two-, and three-dimensional polymer crystals; evaluation of polymer structures and electronic states; high-field gradient NMR systems; diffusion processes in polymer gels and liquid crystals; and stimulus-responsive NMR imaging systems with applications in gel science. Among his many achievements, Professor Ando was a pioneer in establishing the correlation between 13C chemical shifts of α- and β-carbons and main-chain dihedral angles in model peptides, using solid-state NMR and quantum chemical calculations. His application of solid-state NMR to biological polymers greatly advanced the understanding of polymer structures and dynamics.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to solid-state NMR studies in biopolymers, he received the Society Award from the Society of Polymer Science, Japan, in 1990. Beyond his scientific achievements, Professor Ando was dedicated to fostering international collaboration. He served on the editorial boards of several prominent journals, including Journal of Polymer Science, Journal of Molecular Structure, and Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry. Professor Ando’s legacy continues through the many researchers he inspired and the foundational contributions he made to the field of NMR spectroscopy.
Sharon Ashbrook, for her innovative research combining NMR spectroscopy and computational techniques to explore complex materials, her dedication to community service and her advocacy for women in science and public education.
Juli Feigon, for her groundbreaking contributions to the development and application of NMR methods to study nucleic acids.
Christina Redfield, for her groundbreaking contributions to the field of NMR spectroscopy and her innovative applications in elucidating protein structure, dynamics, and function.
Robert Schurko, for being an innovator in the field of solid-state NMR, excelling in theoretical and experimental aspects of chemistry, materials science, quantum chemical computation, and spectroscopy, for being a committed educator and supporter of next generation scientists in academia and industry, and for being a global leader for pushing the frontier of high magnetic field NMR science and applications.
Christiane Timmel, for her pioneering contributions to the magnetic field effect on chemical reactions and cryptochrome proteins in migratory birds through innovative implementation of EPR methods, instrumentation and chemistry tools, and for her dedication for educating the next generation researchers and her effective leadership in advocating for the EPR community and technology.
Many congratulations to these five outstanding scientists.
Fellows are elected on the basis of their contributions to the field of magnetic resonance, both through the impact of their research on the magnetic resonance community itself and through their efforts to advance the appreciation of magnetic resonance in the broader scientific community. Fellowship in ISMAR carries with it an associated responsibility to serve as an advocate for the field of magnetic resonance.
Each year, ISMAR solicits nominations for new Fellows from all regular members of ISMAR. Nominations are first evaluated by the ISMAR Fellows Committee. A list of candidates is then sent to current Fellows for voting, based on both scientific achievements and contributions to the magnetic resonance community.
Note that there was a shift in the schedule and this election covers also part of 2025. The shift was introduced so that the newly elected fellows can be announced during the ISMAR conferences in the middle of the year. The next call for nominations will be issued towards the end of 2025.
The ISMAR Prize Committee has selected the recipients of the 2025 ISMAR Prize and the 2025 Abragam Prize. The ISMAR Prize recipient is Professor Dame Clare Grey of the University of Cambridge, a pioneer in applying solid-state NMR to materials relevant to energy and the environment. The Abragam Prize recipient is Dr. Irene Marco-Rius from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona, a pioneer in the development of biomedical imaging and spectroscopy applied to the study of cells grown on chips.
The ISMAR Executive Committee has also selected Prof. Sami Jannin of the University of Lyon, to be the 2025 Paul Callaghan Lecturer. Prof. Jannin develops new hyperpolarization approaches for preparing nuclear spins in highly polarized or ‘aligned’ states to augment their sensitivity in magnetic resonance.
We congratulate Drs. Grey, Marco-Rius and Jannin and look forward to their lectures on the opening of day of the 2025 joint ISMAR/ENC conference in Asilomar, Pacific Grove, on April 6, 2025. Please see https://www.enc-conference.org/ENC-ISMAR-2025/ for details.
ISMAR mourns the passing of Prof. Anil Kumar on November 9, 2024, at the age of 83 after a brief illness.
Anil had worked as a young research associate with Richard R. Ernst and Kurt Wüthrich, where he performed the first NOESY experiment on a protein, ... also the first 2D-FT-MRI experiment. [He was] one of the most outstanding Indian NMR spectroscopists, and important contributor to quantum information processing by NMR. And owner of the most infectious chuckle in NMR (Malcolm Levitt).
Anil was a professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Among his many recognitions are the Sir C.V. Raman Medal and the Goyal Award in Chemistry by the Indian Chemical Society. He was a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and of ISMAR, and friend to many of us.
We miss him deeply.
The following tributes and remembrances are from Anil's former Swiss colleagues Profs. Kurt Wüthrich and Gerhard Wagner as well as his Indian colleagues Profs. Suryaprakash Nagarajarao, K .V. Ramanathan, and P.K. Madhu.
Tribute by Kurt Wüthrich and Gerhard Wagner
With the passing of Professor Anil Kumar the Swiss NMR community has lost a very special scientific colleague and a dear friend. We recall here a particularly memorable visit in Switzerland.
Anil Kumar spent a sabbatical year from August 1979 to July 1980 as an “Akademischer Gast” at the ETH Zürich, where he joined the collaboration project of Richard R. Ernst and Kurt Wüthrich on the development of two-dimensional NMR for studies of biological macromolecules in solution. This project had been started in November 1976, with Kuniaki Nagayama located in the space of the Wüthrich group at the ETH Hoenggerberg campus and Peter Bachmann located in the space of the Ernst group at the downtown ETH campus. Kuniaki and Peter had by 1979 written the software for 2D NMR spectroscopy, and established protocols for recording homonuclear 2D J-resolved, SECSY and COSY data sets of proteins. Peter Bachmann left the project in April 1979. Kuniaki Nagayama continued to optimize the correlation experiments specifically, to overcome limitations of the available memory and disc space. Anil Kumar inherited Kuniaki Nagayama’s position in the joint project and his one-year stay with us was tremendously successful.
Roots of this success are manyfold: Anil Kumar was one of the highly gifted scientists working on NMR. Anil had in the mid-70s been a postdoctoral fellow in Richard Ernst’s group, when they worked on the initial 2D NMR experiments with small molecules and on basics of magnetic resonance imaging. In 1979, Anil and Kuniaki overlapped in the Wüthrich laboratory for three months, so that Anil could get thoroughly introduced into the practice of 2D NMR with proteins. In several long evening discussions on the possibilities of adding 2D NOE experiments to our arsenal, we underestimated the sensitivity that could be achieved when working with macromolecules. As a consequence, Anil Kumar was encouraged to use the time period from December 23, 1979 to January 3, 1980 for a single 2D NOE experiment on our 360 MHz NMR spectrometer with a highly concentrated solution of the protein BPTI. The result was a 2D NOESY map of superb quality. Anil then joined forces with Gerhard Wagner to combine the power of the 2D NOE experiments with Gerhard’s long-standing experience from one-dimensional NOE experiments with proteins. Gerhard remembers this time in the following paragraphs.
I, Gerhard Wagner, was at the time an “Oberassistent” in the Wüthrich laboratory and had the pleasure to host Anil Kumar during his 1979/1980 sabbatical in my office for a couple of weeks. From his earlier time in the Ernst lab, Anil had a deep understanding of the principles of 2D NMR. He realized that this principle could also be applied for 2D NOE experiments. Luckily, we had a highly soluble protein available, the basic pancreatic trypsin inhibitor, BPTI, which we could concentrate up to 20 mM or more. Furthermore, we had realized that when using short (truncated) irradiation times, small numbers of short distance contacts could be obtained, which allowed nearly complete backbone assignments for BPTI by avoiding problems of spin diffusion. We had built a plastic model of BPTI based on the known crystal structure. Studying this model we realized that the shortest distances were across the peptide bonds from the amide protons to the preceding alpha protons. Thus, applying short irradiating times to individual resolved amide signals with 1D NMR experiments yielded a large fraction of connectivities across the peptide bonds. Spin decoupling yielded the intra-residue connections. However, this was at a loss for many of the overlapping signals that could not be assigned with 1D NOE or spin-decoupling experiments. Moreover, the water signal had to be saturated if amides were not slowly exchanging, which prevented to use the decoupler for selectively saturating amides to build up NOEs.
These limitations were overcome when Anil introduced the 2D NOE (NOESY) experiment in our lab where the selective saturations of proton signals were obtained with the three-pulse exchange-spectroscopy sequence. The decoupler was not needed for creating NOEs and was available for water saturation for assigning also protein signals with rapidly exchanging amides. As the initial 1D NOE experiments took much instrument time, irradiating many signals one after the other, it was not clear how sensitive the proposed 2D NOE would take. Thus, Anil was given our 360 MHz instrument over the long winter holiday break. Fortunately, the NOESY experiment was significantly more sensitive than expected and has since then become key for many biological NMR experiments, which was key for determine protein structures in solution.
Tribute by Suryaprakash Nagarajarao, K .V. Ramanathan and P.K. Madhu
Prof. Anil Kumar's contributions to nuclear magnetic resonance spanned a wide range. These include relaxation, cross-correlation, strong-coupling effects in multidimensional spectroscopy, cross-polarisation dynamics and suppression of sidebands in solid-state NMR, transition-selective pulses, nuclear quadrupolar resonance, and NMR quantum information and computing. Anil had a wonderful insight into the physics of various concepts in magnetic resonance and he was well noted for teaching various graduate-level courses that included NMR and Quantum Mechanics.
Prof. Anil Kumar obtained his Master’s degree from Agra University in the year 1961 and PhD degree in 1969 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, under the supervision of Prof. B.D.N. Rao. He did his Post-doctoral research in the United States at the Georgia Institute of Technology with Prof. Sydney Gordon and at the University of North Carolina with Prof. Charles Johnson. He then moved to the laboratory of Prof. R.R. Ernst at ETH, Zurich where he performed the first 2D Fourier imaging experiment. He was also the first one to observe transient oscillations in cross-polarisation dynamics in solids. Anil returned to India and joined Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as a Faculty member in January 1977. Here he started to work on further developments in two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy. He returned to Zurich for the academic year 1979-80, in a joint project of Prof. Ernst and Prof. Wuthrich. During this period, he was the first one to perform the two-dimensional Nuclear Overhauser Effect experiment, popularly known as NOESY in a protein, which opened the field for the determination of three-dimensional structures of biomolecules in solution by NMR. In his laboratory in India, he continued to explore challenging problems such as the study of cross-correlations in relaxation. He has major contributions in the field of NMR quantum information processing and NMR quantum computing and has pioneered several experimental aspects. Additionally, Prof. Anil Kumar dedicated himself to popularising the power of the modern NMR methodology and has been largely responsible for the current wide-spread use of the technique in India.
Prof. Anil Kumar was widely respected as a mentor and had a large number of PhD students. Whilst demanding the highest possible academic standards from his students, Anil also granted total freedom to all his co-workers. This open attitude of Anil helped all his students to achieve academic excellence of high standards. Anil’s passion and dedication to science in general and NMR in particular was of exemplary standards. His cheerful laughter in the IISc Department of Physics corridors will be sorely missed. In his passing away, the NMR world has lost a scientist of very high caliber.
The Magnetic Resonance community mourns the passing of Prof. Alex Pines on November 2, 2024, at the age of 79.
Alex Pines was a groundbreaking researcher in solid state NMR, beloved teacher, recipient of many awards including the ISMAR Prize, ISMAR President, Fellow of ISMAR, and friend to many of us.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
While a more extensive tribute will follow, here is a short note and call for contributions of remembrance by Jeff Reimer.
Cherished Colleagues:
This past weekend Ditsa Pines called me and told me that Alex Pines had passed, surrounded by family.
A brief obituary can be found here https://reimergroup.org/alex-pines.html. This sterile text was edited from the press release surrounding the launch of the Pines Magnetic Resonance Center at Berkeley in November, 2023. Ditsa gave me this photograph to share with you.
I have already seen some emails and social media posts expressing regrets and remembrances. Thank you for those.
I would like to assemble A BOOK for Ditsa and her family that contains good wishes, remembrances, or photos. If you would like to contribute, please EMAIL THEM TO ME at reimer@berkeley.edu I expect to assemble the book by the end of the month.
Of course, please feel free to share this email with any colleagues that might not see this post.
