On October 11, 2018, the University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences (CBS) honored one of its own—eminent immunologist Ronald Faanes, PhD—at the College’s annual Recognition and Appreciation Dinner at Memorial Hall in the McNamara Alumni Center. Dr. Faanes, who received his BS (chemistry) and PhD (microbiology) from U Minnesota, was the keynote speaker at this year’s dinner, which drew a crowd of 300 donors, faculty, and student scholarship winners. Ron was introduced by CBS Dean Dr. Valery Forbes (https://cbs.umn.edu/contacts/valery-forbes), who noted that as a pupil and mentee of longtime CBS faculty member Dr. Palmer Rogers, “Ron brings a wealth of insight, and some really great stories, about the revered scientist and teacher for whom the Palmer Rogers Microbiology Scholar ship is named.” Some of Dr. Rogers family were in the audience and they could not help being moved by the poignant memories of Palmer that Ron would recount in his address. Ron, who had also played hockey for the Gophers, had moved on from U Minnesota to work first as a tumor immunologist at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, the research arm of the renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York. Legendary U Minnesota physician/scientist Dr. Robert Good, who had led the team that performed the world’s first successful human bone marrow transplant between persons who were not identical twins and is regarded as a founder of modern immunology, had just been named Director of Sloan-Kettering and he brought many of his best scientists, including Ron, along with him to New York.
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