Some details of one controversy Prof. Rich became embroiled in are available
on the wikipedia page for his colleague Sung-Hou Kim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Sung-Hou).
Especially references 6-8, which are scanned copies of correspondence exchanged with the folks at MRC, e.g. the initial accusation: http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/B/X/Y/_/scbbxy.pdf

On 04/30/2015 09:25 AM, Robert Sweet wrote:

I am really sorry to hear this. May his soul rest in peace.

With great respect and affection for Alex, I doubt seriously if he will
rest in peace.  My memory of him as a beamline user was that he was
demanding and difficult to satisfy, but in the end grateful for the effort
we exerted, and he always had interesting things to study.  I suspect that
wherever his soul is now he's found something to complain about, and is
trying to find someone to improve it.

Bob

Ranti Dev Shukla,
Doctoral fellow,
Structural Biology laboratory,
Chonnam National University,
Gwangju, South Korea.

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 7:32 AM, Ho,Shing <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 It is with great sadness to announce that Dr. Alexander Rich, Sedgwick
Professor of Biophysics at MIT, passed away on Monday April 27, 2015 at
Massachusetts General Hospital – he was 90.

 Alex, a member of the RNA tie club, contributed significantly to our
understanding of RNA and DNA structure and function. Scientifically, he was
innovative and often controversial. The list of crystallographers and
structural biologist who trained in Alex’s lab is long, and of those who’s
scientific lives he touched even longer.

 An obituary for Alex has been posted on the MIT web site (
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/obituary-alexander-rich-dies-90-0428).

 ------------------------------------------------
P. Shing Ho, Ph.D.
Professor & Chair
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
1870 Campus Delivery
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1870
970-491-0569 (phone)

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