Forwarded message
OBITUARY
ROBERT E. SHOPE, MD
This morning the world lost a great scientist, many of us lost a great friend, and Dr. Robert E.
Shope's children lost a great father. Bob had suffered from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for a
decade, and finally succumbed, but only after battling heroically.
Bob was the son of Richard Shope, who discovered Rabbit fibroma virus and who worked with Peyton
Rouse in the discovery of the first papovavirus. Growing up in such an environment, with Albert
Einstein as a neighbor in Princeton, Bob naturally gravitated to medicine, attending Cornell
University for a B.A. in zoology
(1951) and then an M.D. (1954). At the time of his death, Bob was Professor of Microbiology and
Immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He was also serving as
Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, Sealy Centers for Structural Biology,
Environmental Health and Medicine, and Vaccine Development, and John S. Dunn Distinguished
Professor, but was more specifically located at the W.H.O. Center for Tropical Diseases,
Center for BioDefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, in the Department of Pathology.
Big words and big titles, but words and titles could not begin to describe Bob Shope. He was an
encyclopedia of information about arboviruses, rodent-borne viruses, and many other viruses. His
travels had taken him to essentially every part of the world where mosquitoes or rodents harbored
viruses. He worked at (then) Camp Detrick when he was an Army medical officer, then in Malaysia at
the Institute of Tropical Medicine, headed the Rockefeller Foundation's laboratory in Belem, Brazil,
studying yellow fever and participating in the discovery of literally hundreds of previously unknown
viruses. For 30 years he worked at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he headed the
W.H.O. Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus Reference and Research, retiring from there to join the
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Throughout his career, he helped investigate or led investigations of Rift Valley fever, Lassa
fever, Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever, and other diseases. Bob co-chaired, with Joshua Lederberg, the
1992 Institute of Medicine's study on emerging infections, was President of the American Society for
Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, winner of the Bailey K. Ashford Award, the Richard
X. Taylor Award, and the Walter Reed Medal, and was the recipient of numerous other prestigious
awards and citations. His accomplishments can only be outlined here. As important as his
accomplishments was the quality of the relationships he developed with both students and
colleagues. He was unfailingly collegial with collaborators and endlessly patient with students.
It is not surprising that he earned both the respect and love of both.
A list of hundreds of publications, hundreds of consultations, thousands of collaborations, and
endless hours writing, editing, and providing a level head and excellent ideas at all-too-often
boring and unproductive committee meetings, would not describe Bob Shope. Like so many of his other
students, associates, and other scientists around the world, I am personally saddened by the loss of
this good friend and mentor.
A memorial service will be held in Galveston later this week, and a memorial scholarship fund will
be established in his honor.
Charles H. Calisher, Ph.D. Professor, Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory Department
of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Colorado State University
End of forwarded message
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