Robert Harvey Rownd

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(1937 - 1997)
https://books.google.com/books?id=PshNAQAAIAAJ
Robert H. Rownd, Professor and Director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Mich., died on 4 January 1997 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 59. Bob Rownd was a member of ASM for 35 years and served on the Editorial Board of the journal of Bacteriology from 1975 to 1981 and as Editor in Chief from 1981 through 1990. Bob was born in Chicago on 4 July 1937. Later, his three young children would believe the fireworks displays were in honor of his birthday. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry from St. Louis University in 1959, and received that institution's Alumni Merit Award in 1984. Bob received an A.M. in Medical Sciences in 1961 and a Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1964, from Harvard University. His graduate work in the laboratory of Paul Doty included early studies on the physical-chemical properties of DNA, and the demonstration of the DNA nature of bacterial antibiotic resistance plasmids. Following postdoctoral training with Sydney Brenner in Cambridge, England, and with Jacques Monod in Paris, France, Bob accepted a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Biochemistry and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1966. Bob received a U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Career Development Award in 1968, and an NIH Research Grant that was continuously funded for 26 years. Bob was an energetic and tireless scientist and administrator and became chairman of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Wisconsin in 1970. He was Program Director ofthe USPHS Training Grant in Molecular Biology at Wisconsin from 1970 through 1979, which served in the development of many talented graduate students. He became a full professor at the University of Wisconsin in 1973. Bob accepted a position as chair of the newly formed Department of Molecular Biology at the Northwestern University Medical and Dental Schools in Chicago in I981, where he recruited a faculty of highly enthusiastic and successful young scientists. He was the first John G. Searle Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Northwestern and held the chair until 1991. Bob served Northwestern as director of the Interdisciplinary Rownd Doctoral Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology and as director of the Combined M.D./Ph.D. Program. He was codirector of the Training Grant in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Program Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program Grant, both of which were awarded by the USPHS to Northwestern largely as a result of his efforts. In 1990, Bob became director and professor of the Center for Molecular Biology at Wayne State University, and he became interim chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in 1993. He merged those two units into the new Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Wayne State in 1994, and served as its director and professor until his death. Bob was an innovative and pioneering scientist, describing the first example of multiple, tandemly repeated gene amplification in bacteria, and publishing the first restriction map of a transmissible antibiotic resistance plasmid. He made many contributions in DNA replication control and its coordination with cell growth and division, publishing approximately 150 articles, reviews, and book chapters. Recently, Bob had begun to shift his interests into more direct applications in molecular medicine such as gene therapy. In addition to his teaching, research, and administrative efforts, Bob also served on multiple editorial boards, study sections, and conference organizing committees. He directed the Ph.D. dissertations of 20 graduate students, trained 37 postdoctoral fellows, and provided opportunities for many undergraduate students and visiting faculty members to study in his laboratory. Bob had an affinity for other cultures, and he enjoyed training many international students in his lab. Many holidays were spent hosting foreign students in the Rownd home. He and his wife Rosalie seized opportunities to travel the world to various scientific conferences and made many new friends along the way. Bob was also an avid tennis player and a long-time patron of the symphony and opera. In addition to his wife of 37 years, Rosalie, he is survived by his three children, Jennifer, Robert, Jr., and David, and two grandchildren, Meagan and Kelly.
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