Preface.

Abstract

Donald M. Crothers, our mentor and friend, passed away on March 16, 2014. Don was a pioneer and leader in the physical chemistry of nucleic acids. Don graduated from Yale University and received a second undergraduate degree from the University of Cambridge. He received his PhD from the University of California at San Diego under the mentorship of Bruno Zimm. Following postdoctoral research with Manfred Eigen at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Don joined the chemistry faculty at Yale University in 1964, where he continued to work for the remainder of his academic career. Don was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987. He published over 350 papers along with the influential books Nucleic Acids: Structures, Properties, and Functions (with Victor Bloomfield and Ignacio Tinoco, Jr.), Physical Chemistry of Nucleic Acids (with the same coauthors), and Physical Chemistry: with Applications to the Life Science (with David Eisenberg). This issue and the one that follows pay homage to Don and his work. Many of us who had the privilege to work in Don's laboratory, or who were scientific colleagues, have contributed articles that we hope will honor the memory of Don and his work. This issue features contributions from former laboratory members Kevin Weeks, Dipankar Sen and Claudia Sissi and from colleagues Michael Waring, Nacho Tinoco and Ed Trifonov. Jonathan B. Chaires James Graham Brown Chair of Cancer Biophysics James Graham Brown Cancer Center University of Louisville 505 S. Hancock Street Louisville, KY 40202 Stephen D. Levene Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Systems Biology Science Departments of Bioengineering, Biological Sciences, and Physics University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, Texas 75080