Ed De Fabo, Professor Emeritus at The George Washington University, passed away December 24
th 2019. Ed was a dedicated photobiologist who was a founding member of the ASP and attended almost every meeting until his retirement in 2010. He was active in arranging and participating in Symposia and presentations on the effects of ultraviolet radiation. He served twice on ASP Council and, in his first term, along with colleagues in the Biophysical Society, ran the Congressional Fellowship program which placed scientists on Capitol Hill to make the case for science in legislation.
For his PhD dissertation, carried out with Walter Shropshire at the Smithsonian Radiation Laboratory, he developed a light system which delivered high intensity, high resolution, narrowband UV radiation over an area large enough to irradiate biologic systems
in vivo. This instrument became the basis for much of his later research. His dissertation established an action spectrum for carotenoid biosynthesis in
Neurospora and identified a role for beta-carotene as a blue light receptor. He then applied his UV expertise in collaboration with Margaret Kripke and her laboratory investigating the immunosuppressive effects of UV radiation. Ed established the photobiologic parameters of UV immunosuppression and derived an
in vivo action spectrum for UV immunosuppression which proposed the trans/cis isomerization of urocanic acid (UCA) in the stratum corneum as an initiator of immunosuppression, subsequently supported by multiple investigators.
In a long and fruitful collaboration between our laboratory and Glenn Merlino and his laboratory, particularly Raza Zaidi, at NCI, he approached the question of the photobiology of melanoma. We established a mouse model for UV-induced melanoma with pathology very similar to human disease. Using his light system which could deliver spectrally isolated UVB or UVA, not surprisingly UVB was effective at initiating melanoma in albino animals. In pigmented animals, however, although UVB was still highly effective, UVA also initiated melanoma indicating a role for an interaction between UVA and melanin/melanin precursors in melanoma. Ed’s expertise was further instrumental in this collaboration in establishing a role for interferon-gamma in susceptibility to melanoma.
He also had a major interest in the environmental effects of increased UV radiation resulting from stratospheric ozone depletion by CFCs and other agents. After completing his PhD he worked for USEPA in the Biologic and Climate Effects Research (BACER), formed when the ozone depleting effects of CFCs were first being noted, to study the biologic effects of UV on ecosystems and human health. Later, in 1991, he was approached by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) established by the International Science Council (ICSU), at that time based in Paris, to set up and chair a multidisciplinary international report on the biological effects of increased UV radiation resulting from stratospheric ozone depletion. This formidable task resulted in two reports “Effects of increased ultraviolet radiation on biological systems” and “Effects of increased ultraviolet radiation on global ecosystems” which were well received and influential. As a result, Ed was given a Global Ozone Award from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) at the 10
th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol in 1997. He was then approached by the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and produced two further reports on the projected effects of increased UV in the Arctic.
Ed was a careful and meticulous scientist whose work was always marked by rigorous ethical standards. His laboratory provided opportunities for multiple students – from high school, undergraduate, graduate and medical students to post doctoral fellows. He was a lively, warm and generous person who loved entertaining and cooking for his family and friends and he greatly enriched our lives with his care and generosity. I collaborated with him scientifically for almost 40 years and was very happily married to him for 33 of those years. He will be deeply missed.
Frances Noonan
