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Anthony received his bachelor of science degree in agricultural chemistry from the National Taiwan University in 1958. After his education in Taiwan, he immigrated to the United States, where he obtained his doctoral degree in biochemistry at the University of North Carolina. Although he is renowned for his research on the cytochrome P450 systems, few are aware that Anthony began his publication career as an undergraduate (Wai et al., 1960).

In 1966, Anthony joined Dr. M. J. Coon at the University of Michigan to pursue postdoctoral training. Here he tackled and succeeded in isolating the membrane-bound enzyme system responsible for the -oxidation of fatty acids. Later he was to learn that he had solubilized and reconstituted the cytochrome P450 system, a system that had eluded isolation attempts by many of the world's best biochemists. The publication of this work was to have impact around the world (Lu and Coon, 1968). This was the first demonstration that this enzyme could be separated from its membrane without loss of activity. This seminal contribution was the passageway through which the early biochemical characterization of this system would take place. The isolation of other forms of this enzyme, the protein structural characterizations, studies on the interaction of the components of this electron transport system, the substrate selectivities of the cytochromes, and the forms involved in the metabolism and toxicity of substrates could only occur after a method to prepare pure enzymes was defined. This publication has become a citation classicnot bad for a postdoc (Lu, 1992).

In 1970, Anthony moved to New Jersey to pursue a new job at Hoffmann La Roche. The Roche years were highly productive ones. Here, with Allen Conney and his team, Anthony expanded on his Michigan research, providing physical evidence for the existence of more than one form of cytochrome P450, the physical and substrate selectivities of these forms, the electron transport and physical association of components of this system, and the role of one of these forms in the carcinogenicity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The Roche years were also the period in which epoxide hydrase and azoreductase, enzymes important in the metabolism of aromatic epoxides and azo dyes, were isolated and characterized.

In 1978, Anthony moved "uptown" to Rahway, New Jersey, and the Merck Research Laboratories. He brought a group from Hoffmann La Roche and founded the Biochemical Toxicology Group in the Department of Animal Drug Metabolism at the Merck Research Laboratories. Their mission was to assess the safety to humans of drug residues in the meat products from animals that had been treated with medications. He thought this would be a straightforward task until his first day on the job at Merck when he was told that the "drug" was a nitroimidazolea potential carcinogen. Merck researchers had already been unsuccessfully working on this safety question for 15 years, and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations required that there be zero nitroimidazole residues present in the meats. Zero is too small to measure and, therefore, impossible to prove (probably the conclusion also reached by those Merck researchers). The group committed 8 years of research to the solution of this drug-residue problem. This research culminated in the publication of a series of research articles, one of which is a reference now often cited by FDA as an exemplary example of research in this area (Lu et al., 1988). Through Anthony's leadership, his group made important contributions to the FDA regulations on drug residues in food-producing animals and to the registrations of revolutionary new medicines: ivermectin, lovastatin, famotidine, losartan, and indinavir.

Anthony's career has been an extraordinarily productive one, with over 220 publications, the registration of several important medicines, a lasting partnership with his wife Lillian, two accomplished daughters, and the formation of innumerable relationships with friends and colleagues. He is the recipient of a number of honors, among them: the B. B. Brodie Award in Drug Metabolism from ASPET; the Robert A. Scala Award in Toxicology from the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Rutgers University; and the Centennial Alumnus Distinguished Visiting Professor Award from the Department of Biochemistry, University of North Carolina. In speaking with Anthony, it is obvious, however, that even more than his scientific accomplishments, he is most proud of his associations with his colleagues. All of us who know Anthony have been molded by his excitement for research, his open and compassionate desire to help others, and his humility and integrity. We are proud to be his friends and colleagues.

Retirement from Merck is simply a stepping-stone to another career for Anthony. He will continue his research as an adjunct professor in the Department of Chemical Biology in the Rutgers University School of Pharmacy and pursue his desire to teach the next generation of scientists in China and in the United States.