John Brooks
July 28, 2023
Friend
Gregory D. Jay MD-PhD
I was saddened to learn of his passing. There are a great many other things that Eugene (`Gene´) Davidson had accomplished in his career. During a sabbatical he was the chief scientific officer at ALCIDE chemical corporation in Farmingdale, Long Island. That is where I met him and he employed me for a summer as a recently graduated undergraduate from Stony Brook University. We worked on understanding how glycans would facilitate the generation of chlorous acid. He was a tremendously creative scientist and also exposed me to important pairings of certain cheeses and fine Bordeaux wines. On one occasion we stayed at his daughter's flat in the Lower East Side of New York as we were attempting to collect data on what is now an ancient instrument called a Cary 60 at NYU; collecting data on the above named project using optical rotatory dispersion. He supported my ideas as well and took great interest in my interest in the lubricin protein since it was heavily glycosylated and in the early to mid 1980s confusion as to whether it really existed. Individuals like Gene are very rare. Gifted with a zeal for life, creativity and an engaging open demeanor. I count him as one of my several mentors in my early career and I was fortunate to have been taught by him outside of a traditional academic setting. Gregory Jay MD-PhD