A tribute to Sjur: Sjur Olsnes, 1939-2014.

Abstract

In the summer of 2014, the community of scientists studying bacterial protein toxins lost one of its pioneers and most prolific members, Sjur Olsnes. Sjur was a valued friend and colleague to those of us who knew and worked with him, and his passing was a deep loss. Sjur was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1939 and grew up on a farm nearby. He studied medicine in Bonn and after a short period at the University of Bergen moved to Oslo, where he did doctoral research in the Institute for Cancer Research at the Norwegian Radium Hospital. Except for brief periods as visiting scientist at institutions abroad, Sjur spent his entire career performing fundamental biochemical and cell biological research at the Radium Hospital. He progressed there from Senior Scientist (1972) to Head of Biochemistry (1990) and also held professorial appointments at the University of Oslo in Biochemistry and Tumor Biology. The research group he headed at the Radium Hospital was internationally recognized for their work on the actions of toxins at the molecular and cellular levels and became a mecca in the field. Sjur's scientific contributions, documented in more than 280 papers, include major discoveries that form the foundation of our current understanding of how protein toxins act at a biochemical and cellular level. While much of his research focused on protein toxins of plant or bacterial origin, his studies also extended to animal viruses and growth factors. The questions he addressed were primarily of a fundamental nature, but he always had an eye on relevance to cancer therapy. Below I briefly describe a few of Sjur's major contributions. Sjur's doctoral research on protein synthesis, mRNA and polyribosomes formed the context for his first major discovery in the toxin field. He reported in 1972, in a paper coauthored by his …