It is unfortunate that sometimes this column must communicate
unwanted news. Such is the case now, when I must share the sad
news that the lipid community has lost another icon. Eugene
Patrick Kennedy passed away Sept. 22. It’s unlikely that there’s
anyone working in the lipid field today who doesn’t know of his
work. The Kennedy pathway for the synthesis of some of the major
phosphoglycerides remains one of the hallmarks of lipid
biochemistry. Kennedy was born in 1919 in Chicago. He enrolled
at De Paul University in 1937 to pursue a degree in chemistry
and in 1941 began his graduate studies in organic chemistry at
the University of Chicago (1). To pay for school, Kennedy worked
during those war years at the meatpacking facility Armour and
Co. to obtain pure bovine serum albumin, which at the time was
thought to be useful for treating shock in wounded soldiers. The
effort was abandoned by 1942, at which time the Red Cross began
collecting blood from human volunteers. Kennedy transferred to
Armour’s new Fort W