Lectins: Personal comments of nathan sharon taken from his memoirs (translation from Hebrew)

Abstract

I met Nathan Sharon in 1962 when he was on sabbatical for a year in the laboratory of Roger Jeanloz at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. I was a post-doctoral research and clinical fellow in the Arthritis Unit in a laboratory next to the laboratory where Nathan worked. My work concerned the biosynthesis of heparin and chondroitin sulfate and had many overlaps with some of his interests in glycoproteins. We became close friends, and he invited me to spend time in his laboratory at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovoth, Israel. Three years later I took advantage of his invitation and went to Israel with my family for six months (1965-1966) to collaborate with him on the synthesis of an interesting sugar nucleotide. Subsequently my wife and I visited Israel multiple times for research meetings and travel, often staying at the Weizmann or at Nathan's home for part of the time. He and his wife had even more occasions to be in the USA for sabbaticals and other research-related reasons. They often stayed at our home during these visits.