Felix Frolow (1947–2014)

On 28 August 2014, the crystallographic community lost one of its most energetic, influential and beloved members with the passing of Felix Frolow. He was 67 years old. All who knew him throughout the years, either in person or through communicating with him, felt the pain of the loss. Felix Frolow was educated as a physicist, completing his Bachelor and MSc studies at the Gorky State University in the USSR. He immigrated to Israel in 1972 and a few months later he began his PhD studies in crystallography with Professor Dov Rabinovich in the department of Structural Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. Almost immediately, his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and his call to reserve duty. But later, after completion of his thesis on porphyrin structures, Felix was made the Head Scientist of the X-ray Crystallography laboratory of the Weizmann Institute, a position he held for 17 years. As head of the crystallography laboratory Felix continued to work on small-molecule organic and organometallic structures. He contributed to seminal X-ray and neutron studies on reduction of symmetry, crystallography of Langmuir films, biomineralization and natural products. During that time, Felix worked together with Professor Hå kon Hope in pioneering the budding field of cryocrystallography and flash freezing, a method that essentially changed protein crystallography. They experimented with viscous oils and any odd material they could think of, such as the resin component of epoxy glue, and with glass spatulas optimized for crystal size glued to a glass fibre. Oded first met Felix in 1985 at the Weizmann Institute while doing graduate studies in protein crystallography. Felix guided Oded in the X-ray laboratory taking precession and Weisenberg photos as well as data collection on a four-circle diffractometer.