It is with much sadness that I write to inform the community that Robert (Bob) Blessing passed away on October 30th.
Blessing graduated from King’s College in 1962. He received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Ohio University, and in the following four years, he carried out post-doctoral studies at the University of Lund, Sweden; the University of Pittsburgh; and two at the State University of New York at Buffalo. After working as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania for four years, Blessing moved to Buffalo in 1978, where he worked as a Research Scientist at Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI), formerly the Medical Foundation of Buffalo. At HWI, he worked with Dr. G. David Smith, Emeritus HWI Researcher, publishing papers on the crystal structure of human insulin. Blessing also developed algorithms and software for crystallographic data reduction and error analysis that are widely used in laboratories worldwide. He was an active member of the American Crystallographic Association and served as President of the Pittsburgh Diffraction Society. In 1991, Blessing was appointed as an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Buffalo (UB) while continuing his duties at HWI. In 2001, Blessing designed the graduate studies program for the newly formed Department of Structural Biology within the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. He was subsequently promoted to Professor within the Department and later served as Director of Graduate Studies and Chair. Blessing was an active member in the Department until his retirement in 2021. Blessing presented work at national and international conferences. He coauthored many publications, including with Herbert Hauptman, the 1985 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. During four different periods, he was a visiting professor in Nancy, France, at the Université de Lorraine where he co-authored ten publications with Claude Lecomte, Professor of Crystallography and Physics. Colleague Jane Griffin, Principal Research Scientist at HWI, described him as “a trusted friend and colleague; always a kind and loving presence… An outstanding scientist, teacher, scholar, Father, friend, colleague… Never dull, full of wit, and never mean-spirited.” He will be truly missed. -- Michael G. Malkowski, Ph.D.<http://medicine.buffalo.edu/content/medicine/faculty/profile.html?ubit=mgm22> Professor and Chair Department of Structural Biology Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences<http://medicine.buffalo.edu/> University at Buffalo 955 Main Street, Room 5154 Buffalo, New York 14203-1121 office: 716-829-3698 email: mg...@buffalo.edu<mailto:mg...@buffalo.edu> twitter: @ub_malkowski<https://twitter.com/UB_Malkowski> ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/CCP4BB, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/
