Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA in 1953, passed away on July 28. He was 88. A minute of silence in Crick’s honor was observed at ISMB 2004 prior to kicking off the conference on July 31. Janet Thornton, director of the European Bioinformatics Institute, delivered a brief eulogy, noting that is “particularly appropriate” for computational biologists to acknowledge Crick’s contributions to the field of molecular biology because he and James Watson “took information from many different sources” to model the structure of DNA. “The way they deduced that structure is very similar to the way we work,” she said. Thornton added that Crick’s example should continue to inspire future generations of biologists that “there are many aspects of molecular biology that are just waiting to be discovered.”
Gene Network Sciences has appointed Raymond Salemme to its board of directors and James H. Watson as COO and CFO. Salemme is CEO of the Cranbury, NJ-based biotech firm Linguagen and founder and former CEO of 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals. Watson was president and CEO of Pathlight Technology, a provider of storage area network solutions.