IN MEMORIAM

George Wolf

Adjunct Professor of Nutrition, Emeritus

UC Berkeley

1922 – 2014

George Wolf, Ph.D., of Berkeley, CA, died August 31, 2014, at age 92. He is survived by his loving wife Patricia (Paddy) Wolf, 90, to whom he was married for 66 years, as well as his sister, 3 children, and 3 grandchildren.

 

George was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1922. His father was a lawyer and his mother a dentist. In 1938, at age 16, he and his sister were taken to England to escape the Nazis, by a Kindertransport organized by the British Quakers. After living in London for a short time, George, along with thousands of other Germans and Austrians, was sent to an internment camp on the Isle of Man. There he studied at a camp university organized by the Jewish refugees (among whom were many eminent German and Austrian professors) for his entrance examination to the University of London. He was released from the camp in 1941 and began to study chemistry at the University of London in 1942. He went on to study at Oxford University (Balliol College) where he received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1947. While at Oxford, he met his future wife, Patricia Nicol. George and Paddy immigrated to America in 1948 and were married that same year. George started his academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. He became an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois in 1951 where he later became Associate Professor of Physiological Chemistry. In 1962, he went to MIT and joined the Department of Nutrition (later Department of Applied Biological Sciences) where he did research and taught for the next 26 years, rising to the rank of Professor of Physiological Chemistry in 1973. His research centered almost entirely on vitamins, particularly the metabolism of vitamin A and its role in human health and disease, on which he published over 100 scientific articles. He was among the first to publish the conclusion that vitamin A functions as a transcription regulator through its metabolite retinoic acid. George organized the first international symposium on vitamin A in the late 1960s. He was instrumental in establishing the FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology summer research conferences, and developed and chaired the first FASEB summer research conference on retinoids in 1982.

 

George retired from MIT in 1988 and moved to Berkeley, CA. He became an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at UC Berkeley that same year. He continued his NIH funded basic research on vitamin A for a number of years. Then, after closing his lab, he continued to make many scientific contributions by reviewing the latest advances in nutrition and as a nutrition historian. George was an exceptional citizen of the department. He organized the departmental seminar program for many years and helped mentor many graduate students. He was a member of many oral qualifying committees and was popular with students. He worked until the age of 87.

 

Throughout his academic life, George and Paddy were hosts to many foreign students, especially Coolidge Pathfinders from Balliol College whom they hosted for over 40 years. Their home was a whirlwind of dinner parties and houseguests. George and Paddy were great Italophiles, and he had many postdoctoral fellows from Italy. George had two sabbaticals in Italy, one in Rome and his final one before retiring in Bari. George and Paddy loved the outdoors. They went on many outings and hikes in the Bay Area right up until the time of George's death. George was a charming man and never lost his old world Viennese manners. He was truly a gentleman scientist.

 

 

Barry Shane