In Memoriam - H.G. Williams Ashman, PhD
An internationally recognized authority on the biochemistry, biosynthesis, regulation and molecular mode of action of sex hormones and their roles in reproduction and in cancer, Howard Guy Williams-Ashman, PhD, the Maurice Goldblatt Professor Emeritus in the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research and the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago, died from pneumonia at the University of Chicago Hospitals on May 24, 2004. He was 78.
Williams-Ashman was an authority on the male reproductive tract and the
proteins that control its development and function. He performed pioneering research on the biochemistry of the male sex hormones, how these hormones influenced RNA synthesis, especially in the prostate, and the role of hormones in prostate cancer.
Born in London on September 3, 1925, Howard Guy Williams-Ashman earned his BA from the University of Cambridge in 1946 and his PhD in biochemistry from the University of London in 1949. He came to the University of Chicago in 1950 as a Schwimmer Fellow in Cancer Research in the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research. Williams-Ashman worked with the lab's founder and director, Charles Huggins, MD, who would win the Nobel Prize in 1966 for his work on the relationship between sex hormones and cancer. Huggins, a urologic surgeon, had a powerful influence on Williams-Ashman, who devoted his career to the study of sex hormones and the male reproductive tract.
He joined the faculty in 1953 as an assistant professor in the Ben May Laboratory and in the department of biochemistry, rising through the ranks to become a professor in 1964. He then left for five years, from 1964 to
1969, to serve as director of the Brady Laboratory for Reproductive Physiology at Johns Hopkins, where he continued to study the biochemistry and physiology of the male reproductive tract and mechanisms of hormone action.In 1969, however, Elwood Jensen, who took over as director of the Ben May Laboratory after Huggins, recruited him back to the University of Chicago.
Williams-Ashman stayed at the University for the rest of his career, serving as interim director of the Ben May from 1983 to 1986 and becoming a professor emeritus in 1991.
A resident of the University of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, Williams-Ashman is survived by his wife Elisabeth, whom he met when they were in adjoining labs at the university, and their daughters Ann Lightfoot, 44, of South Lake, Texas; Charlotte Dick, 41, of Memphis, TN; Ginger Moore, 39, of Evanston, IL; and three grandsons and two granddaughters.
A memorial service at the University has been planned for October 11, 2004 from 3:30-5:00 p.m. at Bond Chapel. A reception will be held in Swift Hall following the service.
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In Memoriam
H.G. WILLIAMS ASHMAN, PH.D.
An internationally recognized authority on the biochemistry, biosynthesis, regulation and molecular mode of action of sex hormones and their roles in reproduction and in cancer, Howard Guy Williams-Ashman, PhD...
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