I just received the news yesterday from Bill Winter that we have sadly lost Tony Sarko from this world. I would like to express first my sorrow and best wishes to his family and friends, and a message of sympathy from Switzerland to Syracuse. He will be missed.
Tony was a key person in my life, a mentor who stepped in at a key turning point for me as a student, a stepping stone upon which I launched my scientific career, an influence I carry with me in my work and actions today.
As a graduate student in Syracuse I had become frustrated with our approach of correlating experimental properties of polymers with descriptors. We were generating data but did not seem to have an understanding of the phenomena we were studying. At first, I tried mathematical approaches from molecular statistical mechanics, which was helpful in advancing my understanding, but still fell short in being able to simulate mechanisms and study them in detail. I stumbled upon the work of Martin Karplus at Harvard who was using computers to study the structure and dynamics of proteins (which led a couple of years ago to a Nobel Prize, and a first in such computational science) and I was hooked. This seemed to be the way to go – I would now try to use molecular computer simulations to both understand the mechanisms and eventually to predict and design structural properties and outcomes. In the last couple of decades these methods have advanced tremendously and such computational science has become a cornerstone of both academic research and industrial applications. However, back then in my graduate student days, no one around the campus in Syracuse seemed to know anything about such approaches. I started exploring and developing and applying such programs, and spent many lonely but absorbed days programming. However, to defend a dissertation on such a topic, I would need a professor to act as my advisor, but none seemed to exist. I had reached a turning point in my career with a new found passion, but was lost in the system I needed to progress through. But then I went and talked with Tony Sarko and he saved the day for me, and I have not looked back since.
Tony had worked as an experimental scientist at SUNY for many years using x-ray diffraction to study the structure of cellulose. However, the experimental data alone was insufficient to produce a clear result and Tony had hence used molecular models and computers to help solve his problem. He immediately saw the value and potential in my ideas, and also had the relevant experience to become my advisor, and he accepted to do that. I was hence able to start my journey of working on programs for running the simulations, getting them working on supercomputers and programming new graphics workstations of that time to produce pictures and movies to visualise and understand the large amount of data produced. Tony was also hands-on and programmed himself the visualisation of structures and I worked with code to add some new techniques in animation to bring the simulations to life as movies. We shared the excitement of watching such movies together. These days such applications are common, but back then I spent weeks running simulations, carrying tapes across campus and lots of time hand-coding the animations. When the movies were finally on the screen, it was a moment of great excitement to share.
Tony mentored me and always was available to talk about my work and problems, and also helped me to navigate to results, publications and a successful dissertation defence. But it was also a long journey. I had underestimated how challenging the work would be and spent three years programming the simulations and analysing the results. Ideas and ambitions I had also fell short, as I understood there were many years ahead to get to the point where some of the goals could be realised. It was a lonely road at times and sometimes I thought I would never reach an endpoint. Tony however empathised with me, was a shoulder to lean on when I was down, and was always there to encourage me, when all looked impossible. We would have a meeting, he would listen to my troubles, and provide sound advice. I would take the encouragement with me and with renewed energy tackle the next problems. For example, I spent one year parallelising computer code to run on parallel supercomputers of that time, so that I could produce the needed simulation results. A lesson to take is that empathy and encouragement is a key component to scientific and technical work, and I have carried that spirit and value with me throughout my career. It was also the first seed for me to understand the importance of collaboration, a value I very much follow in my activities today. Let’s not forget that empathy is more powerful than technology, but both together can improve the chance of success to achieve a great goal. We need to be there for supporting each other in our work! Thank you Tony for that gift.
Based on the start Tony gave me, I then was able to move on to a National Research Council fellowship with Richard Pastor at the FDA, where we published ground-breaking work on using such computer simulations on the structure and dynamics of membranes in Science. In turn that led to working on problems in recognition and drug design as the first Hitchings-Elion fellow at Oxford, under the mentorship of Graham Richards. I was fulfilling my dreams. I then found the new world of the World Wide Web and did not hesitate to explore a new direction and moved on into the business world. I was able to easily and naturally do that because of that confidence that Tony gave me in exploring the unknown and the challenging. I have tried to follow that example in my mentoring of team members since and today, and to also be open to new mentoring myself, as I take on new responsibilities and challenges in both science and business.
In recent years I have returned to the world of in silico data, analysis and modelling, applying these techniques to the goal of using new safety assessment methods replacing animal testing, and including impact on industry and regulation. This is no longer just an academic exploration. I am more mature in my views today seeing the value of combining experiment, data analysis and modelling, and forming collaborations and partnerships to do that. In a new development, we are currently setting up an experimental lab where we are bringing our in silico solutions into the lab and connecting experiments more closely with analysis and modelling. When I see new advances today such as applying simulations to understanding key interactions such as between nanomaterials and biological systems, I immediately see the value and the promise, but also the challenges. I encourage these developments just like Tony did with me as a student. I try to understand, support and help enable the advance. With going back to the lab more these days, I am completing a personal circle - going back to the experimental world where I started out, understanding the mechanisms and the data and bringing it together with the modelling supporting outcomes and solutions. I wanted to talk to Tony about this recently, but we did not quite get to have our meeting. However, I am sure he would be pleased to see where his support of my early career led and is still leading, and those conversations will somehow still exist and continue.
Thank you again Tony for being there at a critical point in my life, for supporting and working with me, and do rest in peace.
Barry
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