David Colman: A Tribute

David R. Colman: 1949–2011 On June 1, 2011, David Colman, a renowned Neuroscientist, Director of the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), and a long-standing member of the editorial board of this journal, passed away unexpectedly following a recent illness. His death was a devastating loss to his family, to his associates and coworkers at the MNI, and to his many friends and colleagues in neuroscience. He leaves a rich legacy of fundamental contributions in the areas of myelin biology, the synapse, and the mechanisms of cell adhesion. He also presided over the reinvigoration of the venerable MNI (The Neuro), which brought to the fore his unique gifts as advocate, educator, and mentor. Dave was raised in a close-knit family and community in Upper (Northern) Manhattan, attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and then New York University (NYU) during the late 1960s and early 1970s, where he was politically active, as was common in that era. He entered State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate as an MDPhD trainee, but as science was his passion, he completed only his PhD, focusing on the neuroanatomic analysis of visual projections. In 1978, he moved to NYU for his postdoctoral fellowship. At this time, the Department of Cell Biology at NYU, under the leadership of David Sabatini, was in the vanguard of elucidating mechanisms of membrane protein biosynthesis and trafficking. Dave credited this fellowship and Sabatini with introducing him to myelinating glia as a spectacular model of cell polarity and membrane biogenesis. The strong cell biological perspective he acquired at NYU was a hallmark of Dave’s work throughout his career. During this fellowship, Dave investigated the pathways of myelin protein biosynthesis. This resulted in a beautiful, foundational paper (Colman et al., 1982) that demonstrated that specific myelin proteins are synthesized on either ERbound or free polysomes and, accordingly, follow different routes to the myelin sheath. Unexpectedly, he also found that mRNAs for the major proteins were differ-