OBITUARY In memoriam

Dr Vera Gamulin passed away on October 12, 2006 in Zagreb, just a few days after returning from the HDBMB congress, organized on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Croatian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. During all that time Vera was its active member. Dr Gamulin was a distinguished Croatian biologist with major research interest in molecular evolution. We will remember her as an extraordinary person, internationally recognized scientist, eminent intellectual, and excellent teacher and organizer, who was actively present in various forms of scientific and academic life. Vera Gamulin was born on December 27, 1948 in Jelsa (Hvar), where she finished elementary school. She completed grammar school in Split, and graduated in biology from the Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb (1972). Three years later she won her M.Sc. degree (Dr Branko Brdar, supervisor) and than Ph.D. 1980 (Professor @eljko Ku}an, supervisor), both from the University of Zagreb. Vera did her postdoctoral research from 1980–1982 with professor Dieter Söll at the Yale University, where she returned as visiting scientist in 1986. She was an employee of the Ru|er Bo{kovi} Institute (IRB) during her whole career. She joined the Institute in 1972 as research assistant and in 1998 she was appointed senior research scientist. From 1987 Dr Gamulin served as head of the Laboratory for Biosynthesis, which was later renamed into the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics. In 2002 she was elected full professor at the Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, where she taught graduate courses for many years. She served as head of Molecular and Cellular Biology program at the Graduate School of Biology (Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb) from 2002 to 2006.