It is with great sadness that we let you know that Dr. William F. Dove passed away on January 27, 2025. Bill was a respected colleague at the University of Wisconsin for 60 years and made seminal contributions to cancer research and to genetics. Below is a brief tribute. Please see the obituary for additional information.
The faculty of the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research and the Laboratory of Genetics will host a gathering to honor Bill Dove on Friday, March 14, 2025, 4-6 pm, in the HSLC Atrium, 750 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI. If you are unable to attend but would like to share a remembrance of Bill, please send it to bsheehan@oncology.wisc.edu.
William F. Dove, PhD (June 20, 1936-January 27, 2025)
Dr. William F. Dove, Professor Emeritus of Oncology and Medical Genetics, passed away on Monday, January 27, 2025, at the age of 88. A true renaissance man, Bill will be remembered as a world-class scientist, a well-respected teacher and mentor, and a valued colleague. Throughout his 60 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he worked to foster community—to encourage communication and collaboration between basic scientists and clinical investigators at all levels.
Bill Dove was born in Orono, Maine, spent part of his childhood in the Midwest, and received a scholarship to spend his high school years at Phillips Academy Andover. He received an undergraduate degree from Amherst College and a PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He then moved to Cambridge University in England where he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship under the direction of Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner. More importantly, at Cambridge he met Alexandra Shedlovsky who became his wife and scientific partner for 58 years.
Dove joined the faculty at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research in 1965 where he would remain for his entire professional career. Dove also made significant contributions in the Department of Medical Genetics, receiving a joint appointment there beginning in 1977, where he made major advances in fundamental genetics and contributed significantly to the graduate curriculum and training program.
When Harold P. Rusch became the founding Director of the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research in 1945 (and later the first Director of the Wisconsin Clinical Cancer Center–now known as the Carbone Cancer Center), he searched for faculty members who showed creativity and enthusiasm and, once hired, fostered their development by allowing them to conduct research with complete freedom. Bill Dove was the epitome of the faculty member Rusch wanted. And Bill valued the freedom Rusch gave him early in his career to pursue his interests and develop a research program that ultimately focused on connecting advances in basic science with the realities of cancer in humans.
Throughout his career, Dr. Dove’s research demonstrated two salient features of his approach to science: the use of elegant genetic approaches to uncover critical biological questions and a willingness to pursue any path—from physical chemistry to embryology—to answer those questions. His research was outstanding both for its contributions to our understanding of fundamental problems in genetics and for its “translation” to solving medical problems. It will result in better treatments for colon cancer patients.
Dr. Dove’s early work focused on two simple organisms, bacteriophage lambda and Physarum polycephalum. He showed that lambda becomes circular shortly after infection but inserts into the host chromosome as a linear molecule (Franklin et al., 1965). Using replication-defective mutants, he recognized that the initiation of DNA replication in lambda phage requires prior transcription through the origin (Furth et al., 1978). When Dr. Dove began his studies on Physarum, no genetic analyses had been possible. He developed methods for the efficient induction and analysis of mutants (Haugli and Dove, 1972) and for stable, integrative transformation by DNA (Burland et al., 1993). His work made this organism genetically tractable, providing a basis for molecular studies of its growth and differentiation (Schedl et al., 1984).
In the 1980s, Dr. Dove began a very high risk and ambitious program to use germline mutagenesis of the mouse to identify genes important in development and in cancer (Shedlovsky et al., 1986). Many geneticists at the time thought that this approach was not even feasible. The Dove research team made some major improvements in the methodology for generating mutations in the mouse germline which overcame some of the logistical barriers. Early fruit of that rigorous effort included the discovery of the first animal model for familial human colon cancer, the Min (for multiple intestinal neoplasia) mouse (Moser et al., 1990). The Min mouse, which carries a mutation in the Apc gene (Su et al., 1992), has proven to be invaluable both for studies of the biology of intestinal carcinogenesis (Gould and Dove, 1997; Merritt et al., 1997) and the evaluation of potential chemopreventive agents (Jacoby et al., 1996). There are several hundred published articles listed in the PubMed database using this extremely valuable model of human disease.
A further seminal contribution from Dr. Dove’s laboratory was the identification of a second mutation in the mouse, the Mom1 (for Modifier of Min) locus, which has profound effects on the ability of the ApcMin mutation to cause intestinal tumors (Dietrich et al., 1993; Cormier et al., 2000). Dr. Dove’s discovery of Mom1 is the best example to date that the genetic background of the mouse can and must be manipulated to obtain the desired phenotypic consequences of disease genes. His work indicates that not only can the altered genetic backgrounds reveal diseases like intestinal neoplasia but that these modifier loci can be mapped and identified through linkage studies. This paradigm, the development of a genetically sensitized animal model and its use to identify genetic enhancers and suppressors of the disease phenotype, will have broad application to our search for genes conferring susceptibility or resistance to cancer in humans.
In collaboration with Dr. Michael N. Gould, Dr. Dove generated a colon cancer model in the laboratory rat (Amos-Landgraf et al., 2007). This achievement could have a significant future impact on human health in that rat disease models are frequently better predictors of drug action than mouse models and for that reason highly valued by the pharmaceutical industry for testing new therapeutic agents. Dr. Dove and colleagues screened for a nonsense allele of the Adenomatous polyposis coli (Apc) gene in the rat. Rats with the mutation (named Pirc, polyposis in the rat colon) develop tumors predominantly in the colon. This pattern resembles the tumor distribution in human patients.
Research in the Dove laboratory resulted in over 200 peer-reviewed publications. Dove received numerous awards for his scientific contributions including the Hilldale Award, a WARF Professorship (George Streisinger Professor of Experimental Biology), and the Harold P. Rusch Award for Translational Cancer Research at UW-Madison, the Genetics Society of America Verne Chapman Memorial Lecture, the Nakahara Memorial Lectureship Prize, and a National Cancer Institute (NCI) MERIT Award among others. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, USA, in 1998 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.
In addition to his research contributions, Dr. Dove was a leader on campus, nationally and internationally in fostering the application of mammalian genetics to cancer research. He tirelessly sought to engage other faculty, postdocs and students in scientific discussion and collaboration. He used many mechanisms, but his goal was always the same―to bring people together to stimulate the best possible science on the UW-Madison campus. During his first decade on campus Dove organized a faculty research discussion group for those active in nucleic acid research—Professors Adler, Bock, Craven, Dahlberg, DeMars, Dove, Echols, Heidelberger, Khorana, Metzenberg, Nomura, Ris, Rownd, Smithies, Szybalski, and Temin. He later created many other workshops and studies groups focused around thematic areas (Cell Biology, Vertebrate Development, Cancer Genetics, and most recently the Technology Forum and the Gastrointestinal Working Group). He organized and garnered global interest in the four installments of Wisconsin Symposia on Human Biology, which drew hundreds of scientists across many disciplines from institutions around the world. He created the McArdle Symposia on Cancer to bring internationally renowned cancer researchers to campus and facilitate discussions with students and postdocs. He often used these events to honor his colleagues by highlighting and celebrating their accomplishments in the scientific program.
At the national level, Dr. Dove has participated in numerous study sections, advisory committees, and editorial boards including the NIH Mouse Models for Human Cancer Consortium, the Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellowship Panel, the NHGRI Knockout Mouse Working Group, and the Board of Scientific Counselors for the NCI Division of Cancer Biology, Diagnosis, and Centers. With his colleague James Crow, Dove was Co-Editor of Perspectives for the Genetics Society of America journal GENETICS for 20 years. He served as the program leader for the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center Program in Cancer Genetics and Genomics for over 10 years.
Dr. Dove’s contribution to the teaching mission of the University also has been outstanding. He helped to design the experiment-based structure of the Biology Core Curriculum, serving as Chair of the original Cell Biology module (1968-1972) with Professors Walter Plaut, Bob Metzenberg, and Millard Susman. He created several graduate “roundtable” courses on Genetic and Genomic Analysis of Human Biology that were known for their breadth and rigor. Similarly, Dr. Dove provided a rich training environment in his laboratory for over 50 students and postdoctoral fellows who have gone on to research positions in academia and industry. He was a thoughtful mentor and contributor to student committees. He directed the Genetics Predoctoral Training Grant, one of the longest funded in the country, for over 15 years. This multi-departmental training program has been one of the most successful on campus, owing to Dove’s (and subsequent PIs) vision and hard work over many years.
Although Bill dedicated his professional life to cancer research, he was devoted to his wife Alex and their family. He valued friendship, loyalty, and time with his children, grandchildren, siblings, extended family, colleagues, and friends.
Alexandra and Bill felt fortunate to have worked in research in molecular genetics during an era so explosive in emerging new knowledge. “Our lives have been enriched both by the remarkable pioneers who have cleared a path for us to follow, and by each of the talented lab associates who have accompanied us, enjoying for themselves the pleasure of learning a truth never known before.” ~W.F. Dove
For additional information, visit Dr. Dove’s website at: https://dove.mcardle.wisc.edu.
Paul F. Lambert, PhD
Director, McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research
Francisco J. Pelegri, PhD
Chair, Laboratory of Genetics