Gordon Shore (1945—2018)
Gordon Shore, a professor at McGill University, passed away Sept. 7 after a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. We remember him as a wonderful husband and father, a steadfast friend and supporter of the community of biomedical scientists in Canada and abroad.
Gordon ShoreGordon Shore, a professor at McGill University, passed away Sept. 7 after a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. We remember him as a wonderful husband and father, a steadfast friend and supporter of the community of biomedical scientists in Canada and abroad.
Mitochondria were the center of Gordon’s scientific life. The coincidence of the endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria and the origin of eukaryotes has captivated life scientists. Today, understanding mitochondrial function and dysfunction is key to understanding overall eukaryotic cell function and the cellular basis of human disease. Gordon’s contributions to our knowledge of mitochondria began with his early studies that revealed the significance of the links between mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum, or ER, in mammalian cells and culminated in elucidating the roles of mitochondria in cell survival and cell death and the relevance of these processes to disease, especially cancer.
Gordon’s early work in mitochondria was done as a postdoctoral fellow with Jamshed Tata at the National Institute of Medical Research in Mill Hill, United Kingdom, now part of the Francis Crick Institute in London. In 1977, Shore and Tata uncovered . Today we understand in great depth the molecular details validating this hypothesis, extending to the acquisition of lipids for mitochondrial biogenesis, to calcium flux, to the mechanisms underpinning mitochondrial division and cell death.
After he was recruited to Montreal in 1977, Gordon carved out his niche in the mitochondrial world. In a field of giants like Günter Blobel, Gottfried Schatz and Walter Neupert, Gordon made seminal of the and in mammalian cells.
In the early 1990s, Gordon began a long friendship with the late Stanley Korsemeyer to focus on play in this process. With the virologist Philip Branton, Gordon used the well-defined adenovirus infection model of apoptosis to unravel the . The intricate dance of the ER and mitochondria to coordinate cell death and cell death suppression was defined through Gordon’s work on . Gordon together with his former graduate student , now a professor at McGill, described the contribution of dynamin-related protein 1 in the remodeling of mitochondrial cristae upon activation of BIK and showed this process is .
Gordon was an inspiring leader in on the ER-mitochondrial axis and autophagy to the clinic. In 1988, he cofounded with Philip Branton a biotech company, GeminX, that developed a first-in-class Bcl-2 inhibitor that targets this process. Gordon expanded his role in drug development as the chief scientific officer at Therillia, a Montreal pharmaceutical company that identifies candidate drugs for the treatment of cancer. Truly, Gordon had a profound impact on our understanding of the basic biology and clinical implications of mitochondria. He has left an indelible mark on his chosen field of research.
Gordon’s scientific contributions are valuable and long lasting, but when those of us who knew him think of him, we will most remember his qualities as a friend and colleague. He was a kind, supportive, optimistic friend who made our lives the better for knowing him. He will be sadly missed.
We thank Kate Beckingham of Rice University, Houston; Phil Branton, Heidi McBride and Dave Thomas of McGill University, Montreal; Jam Tata of the NIMR, London; and Walter Neupert, University of Munich, Martinsreid, for comments and remembrances.
Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?
Become a member to receive the print edition four times a year and the digital edition weekly.
Learn moreGet the latest from ASBMB Today
Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.
Latest in People
People highlights or most popular articles

ASBMB names 2025 fellows
鶹ýɫƬ and 鶹ýɫƬ Biology honors 24 members for their service to the society and accomplishments in research, education, mentorship, diversity and inclusion and advocacy.

When Batman meets Poison Ivy
Jessica Desamero had learned to love science communication by the time she was challenged to explain the role of DNA secondary structure in halting cancer cell growth to an 8th-grade level audience.

The monopoly defined: Who holds the power of science communication?
“At the official competition, out of 12 presenters, only two were from R2 institutions, and the other 10 were from R1 institutions. And just two had distinguishable non-American accents.”

In memoriam: Donald A. Bryant
He was a professor emeritus at Penn State University who discovered how cyanobacteria adapt to far-red light and was a member of the 鶹ýɫƬ and 鶹ýɫƬ Biology for over 35 years.

Yes, I have an accent — just like you
When the author, a native Polish speaker, presented her science as a grad student, she had to wrap her tongue around the English term “fluorescence cross-correlation microscopy.”

Professorships for Booker; scholarship for Entzminger
Squire Booker has been appointed to two honorary professorships at Penn State University. Inayah Entzminger received a a BestColleges scholarship to support their sixth year in the biochemistry Ph.D. program at CUNY.