Paul D. Gottlieb ’65

Paul Gottlieb died of liver cancer Nov. 1, 2003, after a short, heroic fight.

Paul was raised in Highland Park, N.J., and attended Rutgers Prep. At Princeton he majored in biology, developed his senior thesis with Dr. Noboru Sueoka, and took meals at Dial Lodge. He then entered the PhD program at Rockefeller U., becoming part of the team that solved the structure of antibodies and earned the team's mentor, Gerald Edelman, the Nobel Prize in 1972.

At Rockefeller, Paul met his wife, Nell, and after his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford, he worked in immunology at MIT. He then moved to the U. of Texas at Austin and its Dept. of Microbiology. Serving as department chairman and then director of the School of Biological Sciences at UT were especially satisfying to him. His leadership and people skills, together with his problem-solving acumen, enriched each academic community he joined.

Paul could and did teach himself whatever he set out to learn, be it protein chemistry or mouse genetics. He understood the enormous value of scholarship and learning. Analytical and creative, with the infinite care and patience of the consummate experimentalist, Paul also loved sports. Paul was never happier than when he was with his daughter, Erin, and his wife. The class offers its sympathy to them.

The Class of 1965