Very very sad to hear this. I have some great memories of our time together in York several of which involve molecular replacement problems, Fortran77 code, and pubs.
A brilliant mind and a good person. Will miss having someone calling me 'Rapierta' (Roberto pronounced with a Russian accent).
May he rest in peace in a place that he enjoys.
'Rapierta'
Dear All,
It is with a great sadness that I share with you that Alexey Vagin passed away this Saturday in the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after suffering from a heart attack with subsequent complications. He was 78 years old.
Alexey made many developments in methods and software for macromolecular crystallography, to which he devoted his whole life. He is known for his BLANC Suite for structure solution done at the Moscow Institute of Crystallography in the 1980s, as well as for
his contributions to Refmac and Monomer Library. Many thousands of researchers have benefited from his work on Molrep and Balbes software for Molecular Replacement. After his retirement in 2010, Alexey developed and actively maintained the MorDA software for
MR, which became a monument to his efforts.
Alexey's work will continue to serve generations of
researchers through his contributions to CCP4, where
we will take the best care of his distinguished legacy.
With sympathy to everyone who knew Alexey personally and for whom this is very sad news,
Eugene