Fred Sherman

Fred Sherman (May 21, 1932 – September 16, 2013) was an American scientist who pioneered the use of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model for studying the genetics, molecular biology, and biochemistry of eukaryotic cells. His research encompassed broad areas of yeast biology including gene expression, protein synthesis, messenger RNA processing, bioenergetics, and mechanisms of mutagenesis. He also contributed extensively to the genetics of the opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans. Sherman was a strong proponent of the use of baker's yeast as a genetic model system and played a major role in the adoption of yeast genetic approaches by scientists around the world. This was partly through his role for 17 years as co-instructor, with Gerald Fink, of a summer course in yeast genetics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that trained many scientists who went on to make their own seminal contributions in broad areas of biology. Born in Minnesota, Sherman assumed a faculty position at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY in 1962 and remained at that institution throughout his career, continuing to be active well into his sixth decade of teaching and research. In addition to his scientific achievements, intellectual rigor, and encyclopedic knowledge of many fields of biology, he was also known for his sense of humor. Early life Sherman was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Jewish Ukrainian immigrant parents. His birth certificate lists his first name as "Freddie". The family lived in a single room behind his father's grocery store in which Sherman and his younger sister, since their early childhood, often served customers in the absence of their parents.