Ira Herskowitz (1946–2003)

breadth and the intensity of Ira's interests. It also revealed Photo courtesy of Kay Chernush. his modus operandi: using simple genetics to ask and answer big questions. transduction by studying crosstalk between pathways, In 1971, in his last year of graduate school, Ira accepted and examined sporulation as a developmental program. an Assistant Professorship in the University of Oregon's Recently, Ira began using yeast to directly learn about Institute of Molecular Biology, deferring his arrival to spend human genetics, performing a " proof of principle " study a year at MIT with David Botstein to gear up for work on showing that yeast and mammals share similar mecha-yeast. At Eugene, Ira continued his passionate interest in nisms of resistance to the anticancer drug cisplatin. Finally, ␭ lifestyle decisions—studying how ␭ determined whether Ira developed a new love—pharmocogenomics. Stymied to lyse its host or reside peacefully within it. He also began by the inability to carry out genetic experiments in humans, his study of how yeast makes lifestyle decisions, choosing Ira spearheaded a study of whether inherited differences as his entry point a most important issue—cell type specifi-in membrane transporters correlated with altered re-cation. How do yeast decide to switch from the a cell type sponse to drugs. to the ␣ cell type so that mating can occur? His incisive Ira was an inspiring scientist with a generous heart. genetic experiments suggested a novel mechanism— His hallmark was the ability to use simple genetics, supple-insertion of a new cassette with opposite mating type mented in later years by the judicial application of molecu-information. In 1977, the significance and potential of that lar biological, genomic, and bioinformatic tools, to ask big work was recognized by Jim Watson, who convinced two questions. His genius was his ability to look at the data of Ira's earliest students (Jeff Strathern and Jim Hicks) to and formulate elegant hypotheses, often with universal join with Amar Klar to create a year-round program in implications. yeast genetics at Cold Spring Harbor. Among the accom-His driving force was an intense desire to understand plishments of this Cold Spring Harbor Yeast group, which the workings of life and derive the truth, almost akin to attracted the best and brightest of young collaborators, the drive of a Talmudic scholar. In this pursuit, he cared was the demonstration that mating type interconversion little whether it was his idea or someone else's that …