Robert I. Gregerman, MD (1930–2021). An Editorial Reminiscence

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Marjorie Gregerman and daughters Lisa Gregerman and Debra Gregerman, whose eloquent obituary for Bob Gregerman provided source material for this reminiscence, and for sharing family memories, photographs, articles, and notes that were also essential in the preparation of this manuscript. We are grateful to Bob Gregerman’s (and our) colleagues and friends–Marsha C. Bol, Arthur Chernoff, Elizabeth M. Dax, William B. Greenough III, Marc R. Hammerman, S. Mitchell Harman, Erik L. Hewlett, Thomas M. Kelly, James L. Kirkland, Zhongding Lu, James F. Nelson, George S. Roth, Michele J. Saunders, Douglas D. Schocken, John D. Sorkin, Robert J. Workman—whose shared memories at the time of Bob’s death we have quoted extensively; we regret only not being able to incorporate more of their fond recollections. We acknowledge Sabine Schulze-Steele for allowing us access to her copy of Nicole Rudick’s book on Niki de Saint Phalle (ref. ⁴⁰) and its insights into the nature of biography. We are also indebted to Christine Gaspard, Associate Director for Liaison Services, UT Health Briscoe Library, San Antonio, TX, for help in assembling Bob Gregerman’s bibliography and citations (with only minimal parsing).

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

^a This and subsequent quotations are from e-mail communications circulated among Bob Gregerman’s former fellows, other colleagues, and friends on the occasion of his death on October 6, 2021, and in some cases from earlier messages celebrating his 91st birthday on April 18, 2021. Attributions of other quotations in this manuscript are shown in parentheses by initials of individual correspondents whose names are included under Acknowledgments.

^b The interested reader is referred to reference 21, an in-depth profile of Dr. Gregerman with interview, also for additional details of his life, career, and research accomplishments extending those described in the present manuscript.

^c The adenylate cyclase assay developed in Rodbell’s laboratory came to be known colloquially as “the Salomon assay”, after Yoram Salomon, the first author of the paper describing the assay, and to distinguish it from earlier, less sensitive assays.

^d It should be noted here that, in setting up the Salomon assay in his laboratory, Bob Gregerman directed his initial experiments with this methodology to demonstrate guanine nucleotide dependence of epinephrine sensitive adenylate cyclase in human adipocytes.²³ To our knowledge, this was the first such demonstration in human cells.

^e See reference ³² and reference citations contained therein to earlier work by the same authors.

^f Although “parse analysis”, as originally detailed by Davis and Gregerman,⁴² was intended as parody, it turned out to be prophetic in that subsequent scholarly analyses of authors’ contributions to the medical literature – in some cases citing the parse piece as serious precedent (!) – have over time led to present day methodologies reducing published research productivity to formulaic simplifications used in evaluating medical faculty, e.g., for promotion and tenure. Interestingly, “parse analysis II”⁴³ humorously accommodated to developing issues of multi-authorship, proliferation of scientific journals (including those published electronically), and publication fraud – all presaging by many years very real dilemmas now faced by readers of research publications.