In my capacity as president of WormBoard I was passed along some sad news from David Baillie that I’m trying to spread to our community:
Don Moerman has died. He will be missed as a scientist and colleague.
His laboratory played a very important role in the Vancouver scientific community and produced a number of excellent people. He was one of David Baillie’s first two PhD students, and started in his lab in 1975. Both students graduated in the same month, December of 1979. A quite early convert to C. elegans as a model organism, Don was a thoughtful and creative scientist who worked hard in the laboratory engaging with his students and employees. He will be missed.
Don’s research work was focused on projects that tried to provide community resources and aimed at addressing big problems like muscle structure and development as well projects associated with genome structure and gene regulation. I think at he most enjoyed microscopy and imaging of cellular components. He loved microscope technology and enjoyed working with that technology to answer questions.
He was devoted outdoorsman and loved nature. He lived adjacent to a very large bird sanctuary at the delta of the Fraser River for the last 40 or more years. As a student he was and avid hiker, and took long hikes into the local mountains, often alone and camping in the mountains for days or even weeks. He also was a percussionist in a local jazz group in the 60s and 70s.
[edited from a message David Baillie sent]