Frank G. Foote (1906-1998)
Frank G. Foote, Principal Metallurgist at the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory and former Director of Argonne Nat'l Laboratory's Metallurgy Division, died on Nov. 17, 1998. Foote received a master's degree in chemistry from Ohio State in 1930 and a doctorate in metallurgy from Columbia U. in 1941. His principal research interest was the study of the structure of solids by x-ray diffraction; his and E.R. Jette's paper on the defect structure of FeO, published in volume I of the Journal of Chemical Physics, is a classic. Foote joined the Manhattan Project in Chicago in 1943. In May of 1946, Foote returned to the School of Mines of Columbia U. He returned to Argonne as director of the Metallurgy Division (1948-1966). He believed that the study of highly anisotropic materials such as uranium and plutonium would yield insights not obtained from studies on materials of higher symmetry, and enthusiastically supported basic research on U and Pu, production of pure materials, growth of single crystals, measurements of elastic, electrical, magnetic and structural properties, deformation mechanisms, alloy phase diagrams, radiation damage, corrosion, etc. He presented a review of this work at the 1955 Atoms for Peace Conference in Geneva. Frank Foote was a fellow of the AAAS and the American Nuclear Society, and a member of the American Society for Metals, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum engineers, the American Physical Society, and the ACA. He was a quiet scholarly, kind man. He never lost his interest in science or the people he worked with. He is remembered for his sterling qualities, and for his leadership in one of the most exciting periods of science and technology in American history.
Evgeny Konstantinovich Vasil'ev (1922-1999)
Evgeny Konstantinovich Vasil'ev, prominent scientist, X-ray physicist, senior colleague of the Inst. of the Earth Crust of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEC SB RAS), a member of the Siberian Branch of the RAS, and a Doctor of Philosophy died on March 5, 1999 at the age 76.
He was born on September 8, 1922 in the village Zhigalovo, Irkutsk, Russia and began his study at the physical and mathematical faculty of Irkutsk State U. (ISU) in 1940. His education was interrupted by the Second World War, when he served in the Red Army. After the war he graduated from the ISU with honors in 1949 and he worked at the Irkutsk Inst. of rare metals (1949-1950), the East Siberian Geological Inst. of the RAS, which was renamed the Inst. of the Earth Crust in 1962. From 1955 until his death, Vasil'ev worked in the IEC SB RAS. In 1965 he completed his Ph.D. thesis: "Application of the mathematical statistics methods to X-ray diffraction study of an isomorphic series of olivines and garnets".
Studying minerals at the diamond provinces in Yakutia, his highly productive group discovered and characterized new minerals, including florensovite, olekminskite, azoproite, tazheranite, zemkorite, and odintsovite. Rapid X-ray diffraction methods for mineral identification were developed under his direction were the first conducted in East Siberia.
He also developed protocols for X-ray powder diffraction data
analysis in Russia. Vasil'ev is an author and a co-author more
then 150 scientific works including 6 monographs and his book
"Qualitative X-ray phase analyze".
He was on the faculty of the Irkutsk State U., a member of the
Commission of X-ray diffraction analysis, the Russian Mineralogical
Society, the working group on crystal structure and mineralogical
databases of KODATA, the editorial board of the "Powder
Diffraction", organizing committees of many national and
international conferences. and significant contributor to the
ICDD.
Vasil'ev was well organized, highly productive, diligent, inquisitive,
generous and caring. He will be remembered as a scientist, a
remarkable person and our colleague.
Vladimir Evsyunin, Anatoly Revenko, Anvar Kashaev
Emil Harutyunyan (1935-1998)
Prof. Emil Harutyunyan, Russian protein crystallographer, died
in Moscow on Oct. 8, 1998, at the age of 62.
Emil was born on Oct. 10, 1935, in Erevan. He graduated from
the Erevan State University in 1957 and joined the Instituted
of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of
Sciences in Moscow as a post-graduate student, where he was supervised
by Mikhail Porai-Koshits. His Ph.D. Thesis was devoted to X-ray
diffraction study of a series of uranium and thorium compounds.
In 1966, Emil began his work in the Institute of Crystallography
at the Lab. of Biocrystal Structures with Boris Vainshtein. He
was one of the pioneers in X-ray protein crystallography in Russia.
Emil took an active part in solving the first three-dimensional
protein structure in Russia, namely, the structure of the oxygen-binding
plant protein leghaemoglobin, at high resolution. The three-dimensional
structures of inorganic pyrophosphatase, formate dehydrogenase,
and a number of pyridoxal-dependent enzymes, were determined
under his supervision. His research in X-ray crystallography
resulted in the publication of about 150 journal articles.
He was a very good teacher. Fourteen young scientists supervised
by Emil, received their Ph.D., and are presently working in the
best protein crystallography laboratories of the world. After
the death of Boris Vainshtein in 1996, Emil succeeded as Head
of the Lab. of Biocrystal Structures at the Institute of Crystallography.
In spite of the troublesome times, he acquired research facilities,
tirelessly fostered a collaborative atmosphere in the laboratory,
and contributed substantially to the development of protein crystallography
in Russia.
Emil was a scientist of unique research talent and an amicable
person. He was always cheerful and enthusiastic. He was not afraid
to take up the most ambitious problems and never failed to implement
them with success. He will remain in our grateful memory forever.
William Melik-Adamyam and Tatiana Safonova
