(06/02/42 – 08/01/19)

     Carl Hellmuth Schwalbe was born in Chillicothe, OH  on June 2, 1942 to Hellmuth C. Schwalbe and Johanna C. Meerwald Schwalbe, both of whom preceded him in death. 

     Carl was a 1959 graduate of Chillicothe High School and was first inspired by his chemistry teacher there, Chester Hurd, to take up a career in chemistry.  No doubt he was also inspired by his grandfather, Carl Gustav Schwalbe, who founded the Institute of Cellulose Chemistry at the Technical University in Darmstadt. 

     In 1964 Carl graduated summa cum laude from Oberlin College with a degree in chemistry.  In 1970 he received his PhD from Harvard University.  He spent the next two years as a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine.  He then moved on to Aston University where he became a professor in medicinal chemistry.

     In 1989 Carl informed his high school classmates that he was spending a good deal of time in front of a computer playing “video games” with a group of people doing cancer research. He was using crystallography to determine the shapes of drug molecules and was using molecular graphics to compare these shapes.  He spent most of his spare time bicycling through the Worcestershire countryside with his wife, Dr. Susan Louise, and his sons.  He and his sons also enjoyed playing ping-pong together.

     Ten years later Carl informed the classmates that Susan had passed away.  He was the Senior Lecturer of Medicinal Chemistry at Aston University at that time.  By September of 2009 Carl had married Joan Vivien and had agreed to use some of his free time to become the editor of Crystallography News.  He was attending conferences in interesting places around the world. 

     The class was unable to reach Carl prior to the 60-year class reunion but was not yet aware of his passing.