The Facts
Thomas Schmidt-Glenewinkel was born September 11, 1943 in Helmstedt, Germany.
His father was Dr. Hans Schmidt-Glenewinkel, technical physicist and college lecturer at the University of Halle, Saxony. As a German citizen and physicist he worked at the V1 rocket facility in Peenemunde during WWII.
His mother, Dr. Ingeborg Schmidt-Glenewinkel (nee Moench), biologist, was one of the first women in Germany to obtain a PhD. He was the first child of the couple. She died at the birth of his brother Nico Schmidt-Glenewinkel.
His father later remarried Dr. Annemarie Schmidt-Glenewinkel (nee Wallach), biologist, eventually adding two half-brothers to the family Dr. Joachim Schmidt-Glenewinkel and Christoph Schmidt-Glenewinkel.
In 1958 the family escaped via Berlin-East from the German Democratic Republic into Berlin-West, later to Darmstadt, Hesse. There, Thomas attended school starting in 1964 and began the pursuit of his lifelong interest in the study and practice of chemistry.
Upon graduation and after extensive motorcycle travel throughout Europe he was accepted to the prestigious Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt/Main where he ultimately earned his PhD (Dr. Phil. Nat.)
Immediately after he went to Storrs, University of Connecticut, for postdoctoral studies.
In 1986, he became a faculty member at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) where he started a PhD program for neuroscience research and taught molecular biology at the CUNY Graduate Center soon becoming a tenured Professor in Biological Science. In addition to his teaching, he did extensive research in the areas of neuroscience, molecular and genomic sequencing of a novel neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in Drosophila Melanogaster (fruit flies) and supervised the Hunter College DNA sequencing laboratory.
In recent years, he extended his research to examine how disturbing the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and mitochondrial function may contribute to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
For more than ten years he was graduate advisor for the Biology Department at Hunter College devoting enormous energy and unconditional help to the graduate students under his care.
In 2012 he married Yong Zhang a PhD. in Biology who works in drug abuse and addiction research.
The Man
Thomas was a big, warm, bear of a man. who loved his food and beer and courted adventure - “What day this week shall we leave for Istanbul?” he once announced and he and a companion left three days later.
An always available mentor to his students with a special concern for those, who like himself, were new to America. He cared not only for their scientific progress but for their psychological and social adaptation as well.
A genuine acolyte to science he worked tirelessly at both the theory and the less glamorous bench work, spending countless weekends and nights in his beloved lab.
He was equally at home reading through the always enormous pile of literature and books on all subjects at his desk or playing classical piano as he was pulling apart a home heating system or boat diesel engine.
But where he most excelled was as an always loyal, caring, generous and protective husband, family member and friend.
Perhaps it’s ironic that a man who devoted so much of his career in the search for extending life should pass at an age now considered early. That said, those who knew him can easily see him sitting in a beer garden bathed in a butterscotch twilight looking back and saying---
“It was a good life.”
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