Tony Fink, UCSC's distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, passed away on March 3, 2008, following a year-long illness. During Tony's forty-year career in academia, he made many contributions to the field of biophysical chemistry.  With more than 200 scientific publications, 20 book chapters, and three books, he was a world authority on protein folding. Mistakes in this molecular process lead to degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease. Tony's research was to understand what goes wrong and to design treatments to repair the damage or prevent it from happening. He worked tirelessly towards the goal of designing potential drugs and therapeutic methods to combat Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Tony was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 2004, won the BioSTAR Outreach Ambassador of the Year Award in 2002, as well as the Division of Physical & Biological Sciences' Outstanding Faculty Award in 2007.

Those who wish to honor Professor Fink may do so by making a donation to the Tony Fink Memorial Fund to support students and research in Chemistry and Biochemistry. Donations can be sent to Attn: Tony Fink Memorial, 1156 High Street, MS: PBSci Development, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064.