J. B. Alexander “Sandy” Ross (1947–2024), a physical biochemist and molecular biologist, died on September 2 of a chronic lung disorder.
Sandy conducted foundational work in the development and application of time-resolved and single-molecule biological fluorescence spectroscopy, which he combined with other biophysical and computational approaches to investigate protein-protein, protein-nucleic-acid, and protein-membrane interactions and dynamics, and structural dynamics in enzyme catalysis.
Sandy’s first major interests were music and art. He began playing guitar at age 9 and attended the Academy School of Fine Arts in New York City for several summers as a teenager, where he built skills in painting and sculpting. His interest in biochemistry emerged during his undergraduate studies at Antioch College. However, art remained a lifelong passion and influenced his science. He loved to imagine macromolecular structures and dynamics in three dimensions—dancing molecules as he referred to them—much as he created the clay and wood sculptures that fill his house. Music, too, remained a lifetime passion. In addition to guitar, Sandy played Highland bagpipes, Scottish and Northumbrian smallpipes, and Irish pipes, much to the delight of his many scientific friends and colleagues. A criterion in relocating to pursue his scientific career was the existence of a bagpiping community that offered the opportunity to play in pipe bands.
After doing alternative service during the Vietnam War as farm manager and biology teacher at Scattergood Friends School in West Branch, Iowa, Sandy earned his PhD in 1976 under the supervision of David Deranleau and David Teller in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, where his work in peptide spectroscopy and subsequent foundational development of fluorescence as a tool for probing structure and dynamics is widely considered classical in his field. Subsequently, he conducted postdoctoral research in physical chemistry and spectroscopy at low temperatures with Alvin Kwiram at the University of Washington, and worked on development of fluorescent probes for investigating protein structure with Ludwig Brand at Johns Hopkins University.
After a National Institutes of Health Fellowship in Laboratory Medicine with Philip Petra at the University of Washington, Sandy joined the faculty of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in 1982 as professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. He also served as co-director of the Biophysics, Structural Biology, and Biomathematics Training Program. He moved to the University of Montana in 2002 as professor of chemistry and biochemistry and founding director of the BioSpectroscopy Core Research Laboratory. He conducted cutting-edge work in single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy, combining two-photon excitation and microscopy to investigate molecular structure and dynamics, and incorporating nanodisc technology to explore membrane systems. Sandy collaborated widely, sharing his expertise with a wide group of colleagues and friends. He authored more than 110 research articles and reviews.
Sandy was very active within the Biophysical Society, where he was a leading force for the fluorescence community. He was a founding member of the Biological Fluorescence Subgroup, for which he served a term as chair during its formative years (1998–1999) and chaired both the Jablonski Award Committee and the Fluorescence Young Investigator Award Committee (1996–1999). He was instrumental in launching the Journal of Fluorescence, and served as Associate Editor of Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics and Executive Editor of Analytical Biochemistry, each for more than 20 years. He was a visiting professor at the University of Parma, Italy, a visiting scientist at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and adjunct professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Lethbridge, Canada.
Sandy was a dedicated teacher and mentor. He was deeply involved in doctoral education, serving as associate dean and dean of the graduate school at the University of Montana (2010–2016) and was a popular instructor of undergraduates as well. Sandy mentored junior colleagues throughout his career and was particularly supportive of women and minority scholars. To this end, he chaired the Minority Affairs Committee of the Biophysical Society (2012–2016). At the University of Montana, he worked with American Indian/Alaska Native graduate students in STEM, serving as director of the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership from 2008 to 2014. He was recognized as Sloan Mentor of the Year in 2010 and received the American Chemical Society Stanley C. Israel Diversity Award in 2014. He was principal investigator of the National Science Foundation Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate grant “Collaborative Research: The Pacific Northwest Alliance to Develop, Implement and Study a STEM Graduate Education Model for American Indians and Native Alaskans” (2014–2019).
Sandy is survived by his wife, Rabbi Laurie Franklin; his children Rebecca and Owen; son-in-law Cosimo Gonnelli; grandchild Cora Gonnelli; brother and sister-in-law Philip Ross and Marianne Ross; nephews and nieces Neal, Tim, Sonya, and Michelle; and grandniece, Ayla; as well as a host of friends, colleagues, collaborators, and grateful mentees who will remember well his constant smile and twinkle in his eyes.