Erin Colleen Moore

Erin Colleen Moore, 86, a Biochemist who made significant contributions to the development of chemotherapy treatment of cancer, died Wednesday in St. David’s South Austin Hospital after a series of illnesses.

Colleen was born November 16, 1924, in Arlington, Texas, and grew up on the Moore Ranch in Jeff Davis County, Texas, settled by her grandfather in the 1880s. She was educated at home for all but one year of grade school. She attended 5th grade and high school in the nearby town of Valentine. She spent her freshman year of college at Sul Ross College (now Sul Ross State University) in Alpine. She earned B.A. (1945) and M.S. (1950) degrees (chemistry and biochemistry) from the University of Texas at Austin. During that time she worked five years at the Bureau of Industrial Chemistry at U.T.

After earning the M.S. degree, she spent 18 months at the Cold Spring Harbor research complex on Long Island, N.Y., working as a Laboratory Assistant, and became acquainted with three future Nobel Prize winners. Two and a half years in the Chicago area in an industrial chemist’s job convinced her that she preferred the academic atmosphere. She attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison from 1955 to 1958, working with G.A. LePage at the McArdle Cancer Research Laboratories for a Ph.D. in oncology (cancer science). The research was concerned with the biochemical activity of certain then-new cancer chemotherapy drugs.

After receiving her Ph.D. in 1958, she went to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where she remained until she retired in 1987 (except for an 18 months leave for a fellowship at Uppsala University in Sweden, 1961-63). She ended her career with the rank of Biochemist and Professor of Biochemistry.

Her research was concerned mainly with the biosynthesis of the subunits of DNA, the Deoxyribonucleotides. She was the first to discover the mammalian enzyme system which makes these compounds (a slightly different one had been found in bacteria), and made other contributions to understanding the system. other research concerned additional potential chemotherapy agents. She was an author or coauthor of more than 50 papers in scientific journals and seven chapters in books, and she gave over 30 talks at meetings.

In Houston, Colleen was active in a folkdance club and enjoyed canoeing and camping with the Sierra Club. She traveled frequently with her mother and nieces and nephews or with the Sierra Club.

In Austin she was an active volunteer for the Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, Habitat for Humanity, and El Buen Samaritano (Episcopal) prenatal clinic. She was a member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. In retirement, she lived at The Summit retirement home on Bee Cave Road and recently in The Summit’s assisted living facility in Lakeway.

Colleen is survived by three sisters—Patricia Moore Perry of Marble Falls, Texas, Jane Moore Crittendon of Jeff Davis County, Texas, and Gail Moore Suggs of Carlsbad, Calif.—and one step-sister, Sue Jean Berghofer of Albuquerque, N.M. She was a second mother to her 11 nieces and nephews and their families.

A visitation will be held at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, May 28, 2011, at Cook-Walden/ Capital Parks Funeral Home in Pflugerville TX. The funeral service following at 3:30pm in the funeral home chapel.Burial at Cook-Walden/ Memorial Hill Cemetery will immediately follow the service.

Memorial gifts may be made to El Buen Samaritano (Episcopal mission), 7000 Woodhue Drive, Austin, TX 78745, www.elbuen.org

To share memories of Ms. Moore with the family, please visit www.cookwaldencapitalparks.com.