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Obituaries
Nathan Back, professor emeritus and longtime faculty member in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, died March 1 in Jerusalem, Israel, after a two-and-a-half-year battle with lymphoma. He was 83.
Back joined the UB faculty in 1959 and was the first chair of the Department of Biochemical Pharmacology. He was internationally known for his work on the fibrinolysin systems and kallikreins. During his 45-year career at the university, he authored 180 PubMed articles, as well as numerous books and referred papers.
In 1995, as part of the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on SUNY-Israel programs, he participated in mission to the Negev College in Israel as an advisor in the pharmaceutical sciences. The Negev College, located near the Port of Ashkalon bordering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, was formed as a collaborative venture among 15 local municipal and regional councils to provide Israel’s southern residents access to higher education and professional training. The purpose of his visit was to explore the establishment of a pharmaceutical sciences program to ease the country’s shortage of pharmacists.
In Western New York, Back was one of the founders and a past president of Kadimah Day School and an active member of Temple Emmanuel.
He was a highly regarded teacher, and in recognition of this the School of Pharmacy’s Class of 1993 dedicated the Signa yearbook to him.
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