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OBITUARY: BOB WENTHOLD
Bob Wenthold of the NIDCD died Friday, October
30, after a 28-month battle with renal cancer. He
was 61 years old. This is a tragic loss for the
Wenthold family as well as for the NIH
community.
Bob was the Scientific Director of NIDCD's
intramural program from 1998 through 2008. He was
recognized internationally for his work on
glutamate receptors; was once called "a natural
treasure" at one of his laboratory's reviews; and
is fondly remembered across the NIH campus for his
warm personality and exceptional managerial
skills.
Through mentorship and scientific savvy, Bob
came to define the best of the NIH intramural
research program. He trained a remarkable cadre of
individuals who went on to pursue independent,
productive research. Among his major scientific
accomplishments was creating the first antibodies
to glutamate receptors, the primary mediators of
excitatory neurotransmission in the brain.
His landmark 1992 paper in The Journal of
Biological Chemistry, "Immunochemical
Characterization of the Non-NMDA Glutamate Receptor
Using Subunit-specific Antibodies," made a
tremendous impact in this field. This was the
paper that launched a thousand labs, enabling
researchers around the world to pursue related
studies of brain function and adaptation. Bob's own
lab became one of the major centers for production,
purification and characterization of glutamate
receptor antibodies.
Bob joined the NIH in 1984 in what was then
called the National Institute of Neurological and
Communicative Disorders and Stroke. He moved to the
National Institute on Deafness and Other
Communication Disorders at its inception, in 1989,
and ultimately became chief of the Laboratory of
Neurochemistry and chief of its Section on
Neurotransmitter Receptor Biology.
In the 1980s Bob focused mainly on
neurotransmission in the central auditory system of
the brain, a research path he had begun in the
1970s as an NIH postdoctoral fellow. Glutamate is a
major excitatory neurotransmitter in mammalian
cochlear nuclei. By the early 1990s, he became
involved more specifically in the expanding
interest in glutamate receptors, as various kinds
of these receptors were being cloned. Later in the
1990s and to the present, Bob's laboratory focused
on the trafficking of glutamate receptors to and
from synapses, and on the growing number of
proteins that were associated with glutamate
receptor trafficking and function, particularly for
the NMDA receptor.
NMDA is a principal brain protein associated
with long-term memory, synaptic plasticity and
pain. Indeed, his most recently published paper,
appearing in the November 2009 issue of Pain,
concerns neuropathic pain, which he wrote with
colleagues from the University of Cincinnati
College of Medicine and from China. Bob amassed an
impressive publication list of nearly 200 journal
articles and chapters, and several more articles
will likely appear in coming months.
Bob also was a wonderful citizen of the NIH and
contributed in many ways to the well-being of our
scientific community. He was a member of the NIH
Facilities Working Group and was instrumental in
the formulation of our Five Year Strategic
Facilities Plan, which provided the foundation for
ARRA funding earmarked for construction. So Bob's
leadership and wisdom will be felt as we construct
facilities that will carry NIH well into the 21st
century. He was also chair of the Community
Advisory Board for Security (CABS) where he worked
to make our security policy responsive to the needs
of NIH staff.
Bob is survived by his wife, Kris, his children,
Robert J. Wenthold, Jr. and Elizabeth Lucas (and
David) and his granddaughter Marissa.
The family has asked that in lieu of flowers,
donations be given to the NIH Social Work
Department, NIH Clinical Center, Room 2-3-581.
Michael Gottesman, Deputy Director for
Intramural Research
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