Cathy Squires (1941−2021)

by Roberto
 

Microbiologists around the world lost a won­der­ful col­lea­gue when Cathy Squires died this past Au­gust. For Elio and for my­self, this was also the loss of a friend. For many de­ca­des, our lives were con­nec­ted in spe­cial and some­times un­ex­pec­ted ways. A na­tive Californian, Cathy ob­tain­ed her BA and MS in Bac­te­rio­lo­gy at UC Davis, where she wor­ked with John In­gra­ham. Her work with John on bac­te­ri­al growth at low tem­pe­ra­tur­es li­ke­ly spar­ked her life-long pas­sion for un­der­stand­ing growth phy­sio­lo­gy, fo­cus­ing la­ter on stu­dies of ri­bo­so­mal RNA. Cathy got her PhD in Mo­le­cu­lar Bio­­lo­gy and Bio­che­mis­try at UC San­ta Bar­ba­ra work­ing with Nan­cy Lee and then did a post-doc with Char­ley Ya­nof­sky at Stan­ford. There she stu­died trp oper­on re­gu­la­tion, mak­ing im­port­ant con­tri­bu­tions to the un­der­stand­ing of both re­pres­sion and at­te­nu­a­tion. It was through con­ver­sa­tions with John In­gra­ham, whom I've al­ways con­si­der­ed my sci­en­ti­fic pa­dri­no, that I lear­ned of Cathy's work with Char­ley. She did not know it at the time, but her work great­ly in­fluen­ced my de­ci­sion to post-doc with Char­ley.
 

Cathy got her first fa­cul­ty po­si­tion at Dart­mouth and then mov­ed on to Co­lum­bia, where she led a la­bo­ra­to­ry for near­ly twen­ty years. Du­ring that time, she pur­sued ma­ny to­pics on E. coli phy­sio­lo­gy de­ve­lop­ing a strong lik­ing for stu­dy­ing ri­bo­so­mal RNA tran­scrip­tion. It was there that she also be­gan the ex­pe­ri­men­tal path to­wards eli­mi­nat­ing all of E. coli's se­ven chro­mo­so­mal rrn oper­ons, al­ways with the aim of un­der­stand­ing the evo­lu­tion and con­trol of cel­lu­lar growth. The "ho­ly grail" of in­ac­ti­vat­ing all of E. coli's chro­mo­so­mal rrn oper­ons would come, but not un­til af­ter her next aca­de­mic move. Along those years I fol­low­ed Cathy's pub­li­ca­tions with ad­mi­ra­tion and had been de­ligh­ted to meet the won­der­ful per­son be­hind the work at sci­en­ti­fic meet­ings. But I would ne­ver would have sus­pec­ted how our paths cros­sed next.
 

In the ear­ly 1990s Elio was look­ing to leave his post as Chair of Mo­le­cu­lar Bio­lo­gy and Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy at Tufts Me­di­cal School. An open search for a new Chair be­gan and, by se­ren­di­pi­ty, both Cathy and I en­ded up in­ter­view­ing for the job. No­tab­ly, I ne­ver felt any ten­sion be­tween us du­ring the pro­cess. Quite the con­tra­ry, there was a won­der­ful wind­fall for me, we be­came friends. Cathy got the job and mov­ed to Tufts in 1994 and prov­ed to be a car­ing and re­mark­ab­ly ef­fec­tive Chair. In re­mi­nis­cing about her as Chair, Elio said, "She was a sen­sa­tio­nal or­ga­ni­zer. Within a week, she mus­ter­ed the bas­ic science chairs to a meet­ing, where she poin­ted out that the dean had all the pow­er. No more, thanks to her. No doubt, Cathy was a su­perb choice." Being Chair did not cause her to put her re­search aside. Her lab at Tufts was a vi­brant place. And, in 1999, they pub­lished the land­mark paper de­scrib­ing the E. coli strain with all se­ven chro­mo­so­mal rrn oper­ons in­ac­ti­vat­ed. By hav­ing the on­ly func­tio­nal rRNA come from a plas­mid, it was pos­sible to bring in he­te­ro­lo­gous rrn genes, for ex­ample from Pro­teus and even a hy­brid E. coli-yeast oper­on. They were still func­tio­nal in E. coli de­spite mil­lions of years of di­verg­ent evo­lu­tion! Cathy left Tufts in 2007 and moved back to Ca­li­for­nia. She spent se­ve­ral years at Stan­ford, work­ing side-by-side with Char­ley Ya­nof­sky. When Char­ley died in 2018, Cathy wrote his obi­tu­a­ry for STC.
 

Cathy died in Win­ters, Ca­li­for­nia. In­ci­den­tal­ly, the town where I of­ten vi­sit­ed John In­gra­ham so ma­ny years ago... the mys­ti­fy­ing cir­cles of life and death. Since Cathy left Tufts, our paths con­tin­ued to cross, most­ly at sci­en­ti­fic meet­ings. She was al­ways smil­ing and car­ing, there was al­ways a big hug. Her cheer­ful spi­rit and po­si­tive in­flu­ence live on.