Elio Schaechter
Founder, STC
(1928 — 2025)

Elio Schaechter

Elio said in 2023: "I am an ac­tively re­tired mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist, cur­rently liv­ing in San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia. I spent most of my re­search ca­reer work­ing on growth phys­i­ol­ogy and bac­te­r­ial cell or­ga­ni­za­tion. Through this blog I have sat­is­fied my cu­rios­ity in broader mi­cro­bi­o­log­i­cal phe­nom­ena, es­pe­cially those re­lated to ecol­ogy and sym­bi­otic re­la­tion­ships. My hobby is wild mush­rooms. Even though now I am a blog­ger emer­i­tus, this blog re­mains very close to my heart. You can read my mem­oirs here."

(1929 — 2015)

S. Mar­vin Fried­man

The mem­ory of our erst­while col­league on this blog, Mar­vin Fried­man, will be cel­e­brated on Sep­tem­ber 11 on the cam­pus of Hunter Col­lege in New York City, where he spent much of his ca­reer. We wrote about him in a pre­vi­ous post, not­ing that he had writ­ten over 30 ar­ti­cles for this blog, all char­ac­ter­ized by wis­dom and the de­sire to sat­isfy a stead­fast cu­rios­ity in all mat­ters mi­cro­bi­o­log­i­cal. The event will take place on Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 11, 2015 from 10 am-12 noon in the Lang Au­di­to­rium in Hunter North Build­ing, fol­lowed by lunch in Hunter North 926 (the sem­i­nar room of the De­part­ment of Bi­o­log­i­cal Sci­ences). The ad­dress is 695, Park Av­enue, New York NY 10065. — Elio

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(? — 2020)

Merry Youle 

Merry joined me al­most at very in­cep­tion of this blog. She mod­estly of­fered to proof­read the ma­terial. Al­though she had a back­ground in sci­ence (Ph.D. from Johns Hop­kins, long ago), she had given it up in fa­vor of an un­con­ven­tional life. But, luck would have it, shortly be­fore she con­tacted me, she had bought a mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy text­book, which she read from cover to cover. From this un­usu­al be­gin­ning be­gan a ca­reer in and out of the blog. Mean­while, we be­came part­ners. All this cul­mi­nated in her be­com­ing a true ex­pert in phage bi­ol­ogy. She was helped by San Diego State's For­est Ro­hwer, with whom she wrote two fine books. With this ex­pe­ri­ence at hand, she wrote a book on her own, Think­ing Like a Phage, her chef d'oeuvre, a truly re­mark­able paean to her fa­vorite bi­o­log­i­cal en­ti­ties. Read­ing it is a gen­uine treat. The de­vel­op­ment of Merry from es­sen­tially ground zero to be­com­ing a rec­og­nized world ex­pert is well nigh in­cred­i­ble. Hav­ing watch it hap­pen has been one of my great joys. In the in­ter­ven­ing years, we be­came close friends. I will miss her sorely. — Elio

Read here what Merry wrote to say farewell to the blog.