Obituary for Norman R. Farnsworth 1930-2011

摘要

Born in Lynn, MA, in 1930, Norman R. Farnsworth was a decorated soldier of the Korean War, and met his wife Priscilla, also of Lynn, through correspondence while overseas. After his discharge, he earned his B.S. in pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in 1953 and went on to receive a PhD in pharmacognosy from the University of Pittsburgh. He entered academic life on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh and in 1970 moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he served on the faculty for 41 years, but he always kept a black chair from the University of Pittsburgh in his office.Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Farnsworth was internationally known as a leading proponent of the medicinal properties of natural products. In 1959, he co-founded the American Society of Pharmacognosy (ASP) and the Society for Economic Botany. He served on the editorial board of Pharmaceutical Biology for over 30 years, in addition to numerous other journals in the field. NAPAlertSM, a widely used database of the chemical constituents, biological activity, and traditional uses of natural products, was his brain child.