Plant Hormones, Volume 72

Following a liberal arts education with a major in chemistry and biology at Hobart College, Gerald (Gerry) Litwack earned M.S. and PhD degrees in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison where he served as a Lecturer in Enzymology before starting a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis at the Biochemical Institute of the Sorbonne in Paris. His first academic position was assistant professor of biochemistry at Rutgers University where he started his work on hormone action for six years. During this period, he did a sabbatical at the University of California, Berkeley, where he concentrated on rapid enzyme kinetics. In 1960 he accepted an offer of an associate professorship at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Medicine. In 1964, he was invited to be full professor of biochemistry at The Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology at Temple Medical School, simultaneously with a Career Development Award from the NIH, where he later was named Deputy Director of the Institute and the Laura H. Carnell Professor in biochemistry. Subsequently, he was given the Faculty Research Award. He co-discovered ligandin, later found to be in the family of glutathione S-transferases, enzymes that protect the body from carcinogens. In 1991, he moved to the Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University as Professor of Biochemistry, Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Deputy Director of the Kimmel Cancer Research Institute. Later, he became chair of the combined Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and concurrently held the position of Vice Dean for Research. In 2003, he moved to Los Angeles and from 2004-2006 was a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the Department of Biological Chemistry of the Geffen School of Medicine and, in this period, wrote “Human Biochemistry and Disease” a volume of 1254 pages. In 2007, he moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, as Founding Chair of Basic Sciences and Acting Associate Dean for Research to start a new medical school, The Commonwealth Medical College. Having completing his mission in 2010, he moved to The Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Texas A & M Health Science Center, as Professor of Biochemistry and Associate Director. Currently, he is retired and lives in North Hollywood, California, where he continues as an author and as Series Editor of Vitamins and Hormones. He is involved in writing another textbook and has written a first novel, “One-Eighty”.