István Schőn, scientific consultant to the Chemical Works of Gedeon Richter Ltd in Budapest, Hungary, passed away suddenly on 18 June this year, after a short but serious illness. 

He was born in Budapest on 24 April 1942. In 1962, he became a chemistry student at the Faculty of Science of Eötvös Loránd University. On completion of his university studies in 1967, István joined the Chemical Works of Gedeon Richter and spent his full working career there. First he was a member of the peptide production team, and then from 1971 he worked as scientist in the peptide research laboratory. In 1976 he gained an external PhD degree from the Technical University, Budapest which was followed by the CSc degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1978. In the same year he accepted an invitation from Erhard Gross and spent a year in his laboratory at the NIH (Bethesda, Maryland). In 1989 István was appointed head of the Kisfaludy Laboratory at Gedeon Richter, and his scientific achievements were recognised by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with a DSc degree in 1991.

His early work in the field of peptide chemistry was on the development of improved and/or large-scale synthesis of ACTH, oxytocin and pentagastrin. Later, in close collaboration with L Kisfaludy he made significant contribution to the preparation and application of Fmoc amino acid pentafluorophenyl esters in peptide synthesis (L Kisfaludy and I Schőn, Synthesis, 1983, 325-327; I Schőn and L Kisfaludy, Synthesis, 1986, 303-305). Among his main achievements were the understanding of the reductive transformations in liquid ammonia in the presence of sodium (I Schőn, Chem.Rev. 84, 287-297) and of the side-reactions of Asp in acidic or alkaline conditions (I Schőn et al., J.Chem.Soc. Perkin Trans. I, 1991, 3213-3223; I Schőn and O Nyéki, J.Chem.Soc. Chem.Commun., 1994, 393-394).

He had a strong interest in developing new and reliable methodologies and procedures as well as studying structure-function relationship of hormones and immunomodulatory peptides as drug candidates. Most of the 100 or so articles he wrote were concerned with peptides. His contribution to pharmaceutical research and development is further attested by more than 40 patents and the large number of lectures at national and international meetings. In addition he published a well-received series of newspaper articles in the Hungarian daily press in the 1990s on science policy.

Since 1988 he gave courses on "Peptide Research in the Pharmaceutical Industry" as an invited guest lecturer at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Albert Szent-Györgyi University, Szeged, and in 1993 he was elected an Honorary Professor of there. He was also a member of the Chemistry PhD Programme Board at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

He was a member of the Peptide Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1981, and of the European Peptide Society from the very beginning. Among other peptide-related activities he was involved in setting up the Lajos Kisfaludy Foundation and served as its first Secretary from 1994; he was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Hungarian Peptide and Protein Research; and he was a key figure on the Organising Committee of EPS-25.

István Schőn was a man of passionate attachments: to his subject, his work, his company, his family and his friends. He leaves his wife Irén, whom he married in 1968, and a son, Attila and a daughter, Barbara. We have lost not only a talented and dedicated peptide chemist, but also a wonderful person and a beloved friend, and we know that colleagues all over the peptide world will long remember him.
 

(The European Peptide Society Newsletter Issue Number 24, 1 January 2001)