loading
ObituariesIn Remembrance: Mark W. Bitensky ’55, ’59MD Died on May 10 2014Mark Bitensky died May 10, 2014, in Waltham, Massachusetts, after a long illness. He is survived by his wife, Candace Keirns-Bitensky; his son, Harry Bitensky; his daughter, Susan Bitensky Sutton; and two grandsons, Asa and Emmet Sutton. A memorial will be held on September 7, 2014. You may contact Candace Keirns-Bitensky for more information regarding the memorial. —Submitted by the family. |
|
3 comments
Print
Email
3 remembrances
Candace,
We are so sorry to hear of Mark's passing. Please accept our sincerest condolences. May his memory be a blessing.
Utin family
It was my good fortune to have had Mark as my thesis advisor, Yale Medical School, 1970s. When a Nobel prize is given in medicine, the selected figure "stands for," as it were, his research group and associates working in the same area. Paul Greengard shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2000, and Mark was one of those associates. Mark was among the first to realize the significance of then recently-discovered cyclic AMP. Actually, at the time, only a few scientists had even heard of it. Now, literally all of neuropharmacology and psychopharmacology, including the antidepressants which revolutionized mental health, are based on and take for granted that foundational work. All faculty in that setting were intense individuals, but Mark stood out as intense among the intense. Great teacher!
I only recently became aware that Mark was a cousin through my paternal grandmother, Sarah Zirin, nee Bitensky, my sincere condolences. As a pharmacist, studying medicinal chemistry and biochemistry, I understand the importance of cyclic AMP and the effect on human bio-stasis that it has. Truly a supreme accomplishment the world should know and never forget.
I am sure that he and his brother were young men when they both with their parents Izzy and Sylvia may have attended my bar mitzvah in 1965. I remember Izzy from family get togethers. Once again. My condolences. and prayers.