Robert Berne: His place in the history of purine research

Last year the purine community lost one of its leaders, Prof. Robert Berne of the University of Virginia. There is little that I can add to the eulogies that appeared at the time of his passing. Rather, I thought I would use this article to place his work in the perspective of over 200 years of research on purines that led up to and then resulted from his work. The story involves scientific notables, many of them Nobel laureates (indicated with an asterisk). (C) 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.