Herbert Tabor, who worked at the US National Institutes of Health for 77 years, has died, the Washington Post reports. He was 101.
According to the Post, Tabor joined NIH in 1943. Prior to that, as an intern at Yale New Haven Hospital, he was part of a penicillin clinical trial, and he served as a medical officer on a Coast Guard ship, it adds. While at NIH, Tabor, along with his wife Celia, who was also a biochemist and died in 2012, studied the enzymatic pathways of polyamines and found polyamines to be involved in organismal growth; defense against oxidative and other damage; and the maintenance of mitochondria and protein synthesis, according to NIH.
"Herb taught me how to do science, and his devotion to science set a standard for me to aspire to," Reed Wickner from NIH who trained under Tabor says in a statement.
Tabor's son Edward tells the Post that his father only began to slow down his lab work at the age of 100, but as he had accumulated so much leave he was on the NIH staff until his death. The NIH notes Tabor was the agency's longest-serving employee.