Obituary: Claus-Wilhelm von der Lieth (1949–2007)

Abstract

On November 16, 2007, Dr. rer. nat. Claus-Wilhelm (Willi) von der Lieth died unexpectedly, a victim of cancer, at the age of 58. He was born on June 13, 1949 in Bremervorde, Germany, studied chemistry at the Technical University of Hannover from 1969 to 1977, and received his diploma under Prof. H. Seidel with a thesis entitled Nitrates of metals with valence I and II: preparation and vibrational spectroscopy. Willi then pursued further studies in theoretical chemistry at the University of Heidelberg under Prof. H.-H. Eysel and received his doctoral degree in 1980 with a thesis on Single-crystal Raman bandshape analysis of sodium nitrite: studies of order–disorder phenomena through the interpretation of the relative intensities of the internal vibrations of the nitrite ion. In that same year Willi joined the staff of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg as a research scientist in the Central Spectroscopy service group initiated by Prof. E. Hecker and began the development of a computer-based spectroscopic information system for NMR, MS, and IR spectra. In 1984 Willi was a Guest Scientist at the University of Lund, Sweden, and worked with Prof. R. E. Carter and Dr. T. Liljefors on the structure elucidation of organic molecules by force-field calculations and the development of software for the generation and display of 3D structures. Upon his return to Heidelberg, Willi introduced the techniques of molecular modeling as a research tool and central service in the DKFZ. From 1986 to 1987, a further sabbatical in Lund was used to learn the techniques of molecular dynamics simulations of peptides and proteins and to pursue several research projects in the field of Computational Chemistry. For the last 20 years Willi headed the Molecular Modeling group within the Central Spectroscopy Dept. at the DKFZ, where he introduced a wide variety of modeling services and open-access software, conducted courses in modeling techniques, collaborated with many diverse research groups, and organized the development of sophisticated 3D structure and spectroscopy data banks as well as Internet-based educational and research applications in Glycoconj J (2008) 25:189–190 DOI 10.1007/s10719-008-9103-2