engleski

Tribute to Elsa Reiner

The tribute to Dr Elsa Reiner at the very beginning of the XIth International ChE Meeting is in honor of her important contributions to not only to the field of cholinesterases but also in organization of a series of international meetings. Dr Reiner initiated and organized the first meeting in Split in 1975. My coworkers and I feel very privileged that we together with Dr Reiner organized the last meeting in Sibenik, Croatia in September 2009. I am glad to see in the audience many witnesses of that very special moment of her life. Dr Reiner had personal and scientific relationships with most of you. Hence, instead slides with facts about Dr Reiner that I going to read, I decided to put on slides photos to honor her memory at this occasion. Elsa Reiner was born in Osijek, Croatia, in 1930 where she spent her childhood before she moved with her parents to Zagreb. Here, she began to study chemistry and obtained her PhD degree in 1962. Since 1954 she was employed at the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health in Zagreb. She started her scientific career in the Laboratory of Toxicology with methodological aspects of the determination of acetylcholine hydrolysis using the Warburg apparatus. During her Alexander v. Humboldt scholarship at the Institute of Physiology at the University of Heidelberg headed by Wolfgang Hardegg she employed this method for the detection of several acetylcholine hydrolyzing enzymes in purified horse serum preparations that was published in Nature (Reiner et al., 1965). Next, Elsa Reiner spent some seven years in the M.R.C. Laboratories at Carshalton, Sussex, where a lot of important enzyme kinetic studies were published together with the late Norman Aldridge, culminating in their standard textbook “Enzyme inhibitors as substrates. Interactions of esterases with esters of organophosphorus and carbamic acids” (Aldridge and Reiner, 1972). This legacy of the two important scientists is still a mostly cited book and a “must” for the cholinesterase community. Coming back to her Laboratory of Biochemistry at the Institute in Zagreb, which she led until her (official!) retirement in 2000, important enzyme kinetic studies on cholinesterases appeared with her coworkers Vera Simeon and Mira Skrinjaric-Spoljar during the 1970s and 1980s. The field was extended to structural aspects when Zoran Radić joined the scene. The importance of an allosteric peripheral binding site in cholinesterases was elaborated together with Palmer Taylor at La Jolla and resulted in the most often cited article of Elsa Reiner’s bibliography (Radic et al., 1991). In the 1990s Elsa Reiner turned to another group of mammalian esterases with the capability of splitting organophosphorus compounds, the so- called paraoxonases, including phenotyping studies. These studies touched nomenclatural aspects, which resulted in a joined publication with La Du et al. (1999). Since 1995, when Dr Reiner invited me to join her lab, we continued investigations on the relationship of structural aspects on functional properties of cholinesterases. Even if Elsa Reiner had (formally!) retired, she was still active and gave her input in the scientific work almost until her passing. Sadly the galley proofs of Goran Sinko’s paper that she highly contributed arrived almost together with news that she pass away. Besides these fundamental studies many applied aspects were touched by Elsa Reiner who placed her wide knowledge at the disposal, e.g. of the World Health Organization where she was an Expert Panel Member for almost 30 years. This field comprised also another chemical group, different from organophosphorus compounds and carbamates, the organochlorines, which has been investigated by her doctorate student and coworker Blanka Krauthacker for more than three decades. Despite her cosmopolitan contacts and wide-hearted collaborations Elsa Reiner was proud to be a Croatian and one of her last publications were dedicated to the Croatian contributions on the mechanisms of cholinesterase inhibitors and reactivators (Reiner et al., 2007). In addition, a recent autobiographic contribution appeared (Reiner and Katalinic, 2011) on “About 30 years of organizing international meetings. Cholinesterases and related enzymes”. The scientific overview of Elsa Reiner comprises more that 150 papers, 12 book editions and four conference proceedings where Elsa Reiner was the guest editor. Her scientific contributions were honored with several awards and recognitions, which were mentioned in a special symposium at the congress of the Croatian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology held at Osijek in 2008 in honor of Elsa Reiner. Namely Dr Reiner was the first president of Croatian biochemical Society that was established in 1976, only one year later then the Federation of European Biochemistry Societies. Elsa Reiner left us on 5th July 2011, which resulted in a bouquet of immediate expression of condolences in the social network of the cholinesterase community when e-mails came from all over the world, proving the deep sympathy to the highly respected and beloved old lady. All of us who were fortunate to work with Dr. Elsa Reiner remember her as a brilliant scientist and uniquely caring and insightful human being. As persistent and meticulous in science she was supportive and encouraging outside the lab. Working hard and remaining scientifically active until her peaceful passing she earned every bit of respect that she enjoyed worldwide. She was a true ambassador in science. She was a happy person who loved and enjoyed fully the work she excelled in. Even the last months of her life she dedicated her thoughts to organization of this meeting in Kazan. She would be happy to see old and new members of her cholinesterase family gathering again. We will remember and greatly miss her for her unstoppable enthusiasm, perfection and support.

first president of Croatian biochemical Society; Enzyme inhibitors as substrates. Interactions of esterases

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