SIXTH SPECIAL AWARD 363 Dr. Aaron 13. Lerner (right), School of Medicine, Yale University receiving fipe- cial Award from H. J. Amsterdam, President of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. the SOC•F.T¾ this illuminated scroll and check for $1000 with the express hope that it will serve to stimulate ub' ' p hcat•ons of significant research in scientific disciplines bearing on the work of the cosmetic chemist." AARON B. LERNER, M.D., PH.D.--REMARKABLE MAN, CLINICIAN, AND, ABOVE ALL, SCIENTIST A Eulogy by L. E^RL•. ARSOW, Ph.D., M.D. O•v. D^¾ in the fall of 1940, a young fellow named Aaron Lerner walked into my laboratory at the University of Minnesota and announced that he wished to do some graduate work in physiological chemistry. He had taken his B.A. degree at Minnesota, majoring in mathematics and chemistry. He had spent a summer cleaning animal cages in the Depart- ment of Biology, and had learned something about research by doing a problem involving spectroscopy and lipid metabolism with Dr. Richard H. Barnes, now Dean of the Graduate School of Nutrition at Cornell Uni- versity. For this work, he received the rare distinction of election to membership in Sigma Xi while still an undergraduate student. As it happened, one day I had discovered a small bottle of dopa (L- dihydroxyphenylalanine) in our departmental stockroom. Using the ma-

364 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS terial in that small bottle, I had learned to prepare dopa-melanin, and had done several experiments involving the interconversions of tyrosine, dopa, dopa-melanin, and the pigments of human hair. Aaron became interested in this field, and his first studies involved pilot reactions, using tyrosine, designed to make it possible eventually to make synthetic melanins from the dipeptide of dopa. Hence, I can claim at least a small amount of credit for starting the chain reaction--that is, the beautiful series of ex- periments done by Aaron and his associates--that has given us most of our present knowledge of skin pigmentation. In 1942 I left Minnesota, but Aaron continued his work, and by the end of 1942 he had earned his Master's degree in physiological chemistry, with a minor in physiology. He had, in fact, worked so zealously that he had completed all the requirements for the Ph.D. degree except the work needed for the doctor's dissertation. He decided to enter medical school and, taking advantage both of his inexhaustible energy and the speeded up pace of the war-time medical curriculum, he received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in 1945. His thesis work concerned the study of cryoglobulins-- curious proteins in the blood of certain unfortunate patients that precipitate in vivo when an extremity becomes chilled. Since some of the resulting symptoms are dermatologic in nature, already unconsciously he had entered the field of experimental dermatology. Another important event occurred about this time. He married a talented and beautiful young lady who had just received her Bachelor's degree at Minnesota. She had majored in speech, wanted to be a writer, and had not been introduced to science. It will become evident soon, however, that her later indoctrination has been unusually thorough! After graduation, Aaron interned at the Marine Hospital on Staten Island. His wife, Marguerite (better known as Marge), entered nearby Barnard College because she thought it was time she took a few science courses. Some of her fellow students applied for admission to medical school. Marge, perhaps thinking she had nothing to lose, applied also and was accepted by Johns Hopkins. Now came a period of separation of six months during which time Marge was in medical school and Aaron was in what he sometimes describes as purgatory. He spent six months in a mental hospital in St. Cloud, Min- nesota. Here he organized a research laboratory. Fortunately for der- matology, he managed to be transferred to the Army Chemical Center, then known as Edgewood Arsenal. Here he worked in Dr. W. H. Sum- merson's laboratory, and it was here that his series of brilliant contributions to our knowledge of skin pigmentation really began. At that time, it was believed that mammalian tissue did not contain a tyrosinase, although animal skin could readily be shown to have a dopa- oxidase that could convert dopa to melanin. It was necessary to assume