William Dove
William Franklin (Bill) Dove passed away on Monday, January 27, 2025, surrounded by his loving family at Capitol Lakes Senior Living Center in Madison, WI. He is remembered as a scientist, a mentor, and a devoted family leader.
Bill was born June 20, 1936 to William Franklin Dove and Ruth (née Stone) Dove in Orono, Maine. He was the second of five siblings. He joined a family of educators: Bill’s father was a geneticist at the University of Maine and his mother had been a lecturer in the English Departments at Smith College and the University of Maine prior to having children. Bill spent his early years exploring the woods of Maine and became a keen observer of the natural world. He was grateful for his public school education, where teachers noticed his curiosity and nurtured his interest in science. At age nine, his family moved to Oak Park, Illinois, where Bill soon began working as an early-morning newspaper carrier for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, a job he passed on to his younger siblings. A pivotal point in Bill’s education came when he received a scholarship to attend Phillips Academy Andover through the school’s “Youth From Every Quarter” program. His experience at Andover (class of 1954), together with an exchange year at The Oundle School in England, broadened Bill’s worldview and allowed him to build a rich network of lifelong friendships across the globe.
After graduating from Amherst College (AB Chemistry, 1958) and earning a PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1962, Bill returned to England. At Cambridge University, he worked as a research fellow with scientific pioneers Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner. There, Bill met his future wife, postdoctoral fellow Alexandra Shedlovsky. She earned Bill’s gratitude and admiration by repeatedly saving his scientific experiments from ruin while he was immersed in tea-table conversation with colleagues. Bill and Alex married in 1964. After a honeymoon on Mount Desert Island, Maine – a place they would return to regularly for scientific collaborations at The Jackson Laboratory and vacations with their growing family – they began their life together in California. In 1965 they moved to Madison, Wisconsin where Bill took his first (and final) position in the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research with a dual appointment in the Department of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison).
Bill Dove made tremendous contributions to biomedical research on cancer over the course of his career. An overarching theme was Bill’s use of powerful genetic analyses to link chemistry to biology, and thus to unravel key molecular mechanisms of fundamental biological processes. He maintained an interest in the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration throughout his life. Over a nearly 70-year career, Bill studied the life cycles of three organisms. The first was a bacterial virus called lambda, the second was a “slime mold”Physarum polycephalum, and the third was the mouse. There were two important conceptual through-lines in this research. The first concerns basic biology: all living organisms reproduce themselves. Crucial to reproduction is the organism’s ability to replicate its DNA, the basic hereditary material. Equally important is that this replication process happen in a controlled way: it must take place at certain times in the life cycle of the organism and not at others. In Bill’s work on lambda, Physarum, and the mouse, the subject of DNA replication control – how it operates normally and what happens when that control goes off the rails, as in cancer – was a central theme and concern. The second through-line was the importance of obtaining new genetic variants to explore biological processes. This idea was not new with Bill but it was only in the late 1950s, when he was starting out as a young scientist, that procuring experimental samples of mutations truly became a feasible approach. Bill took this pursuit seriously, realizing that work on new mutations could lead to the discovery of new genetic factors, which in turn would advance understanding of the biology of complex organisms. This scientific program, of inducing new mutations and investigating them, was fruitful in Physarum but even more so in the mouse work, being crucial to the ground-breaking work on cancer done by the Dove lab. The work of Bill and his colleagues aimed to achieve a deep understanding of the biology of colon cancer and thereby to impact its management in humans through diagnosis, prognosis, and early detection.
Alongside his own research, Bill served for several decades as co-editor (along with his colleague Jim Crow) of the Perspectives section of the journal Genetics. In that capacity, Dove and Crow impacted the intellectual development of many scientists who were working to advance knowledge of the complex mechanisms of replication that inform all of biology. Bill’s work in science featured imagination and intellectual rigor, while his articles, describing the work, featured scientific clarity and incisiveness. His contributions received recognition across national and international scientific communities. He was Professor Emeritus of Oncology and Medical Genetics, and Streisinger Professor of Experimental Biology at UW-Madison. He received research fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Cancer Society. He was honored with memberships to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Though grateful for these acknowledgements, Bill maintained a humble outlook and saw that his work’s true impact was through the ability to connect with others. Particularly notable was his concern for his students and post docs as shown in the care with which he guided them to become productive scientists. Those he mentored went on to contribute significantly to science. Many years after he retired from the university, Bill was still sought out by former trainees and he willingly offered encouragement and feedback on their projects. In describing the impact of his mentorship, Bill’s junior colleagues used words such as “encouraging”, “wise”, “caring”, “generous”, “innovative”, and “visionary.” They recognized, in Bill, a model of how one could be simultaneously and thoroughly committed to science and to active participation in family life. A responsible community member, Bill also contributed in quiet and unheralded ways to the academic life of his beloved home institution, UW-Madison. He remained active in science until the very end of his life, staying in touch with colleagues at UW-Madison and beyond.
Bill complemented his professional pursuits through a variety of passions that he enjoyed with family and friends, including playing tennis, coaching baseball, bicycling to and from campus into his 80s, windsurfing on lakes in Madison and in Maine, photography, walking through the UW Arboretum, and hosting convivial gatherings with neighbors and friends. He shared his love of adventure and discovery by creating cherished family traditions: “cow trips” to explore the surrounding countryside with his young children; summer canoe trips along the Kickapoo, Wisconsin, and Mississippi rivers with his sons’ Boy Scout troop and with Dove Lab and family members; wooden handicrafts that he and Alexandra built together; an annual family calendar highlighting photos of the extended family; and outings to American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI. He was especially proud of his seven grandchildren and loved to cheer them on in their various pursuits. He relished creating special adventures, memorable lessons, and entertaining games for the younger generation. In his later years he documented treasured family stories, ensuring that his grandchildren would know and appreciate the adventures of their ancestors.
Close family relationships were precious to Bill, and he was committed to sustaining and developing those bonds. Bill coined a family motto, “Just Connect,” and reinforced this ideal through regular gatherings of extended family members, supplemented with large group virtual convenings. Thanks to these commitments to connection, Bill leaves behind a large and interdependent extended family. Bill was preceded in death by Alexandra, his wife of 58 years, as well as his siblings Felicia, Christopher (Kit), and Ellen Dove. He is survived by his loving family: children William (Kiki Jamieson), Patrick (Deborah Myerson), and Suzanne (Miguel García-Gosálvez); brother John Dove and sister-in-law Gloria Dove; brother-in-law Julian Shedlovsky; and sister-in-law Mary Freeman Dove. He is further survived by many treasured nephews and nieces, cousin Felicia Brown, and seven grandchildren (Louis, Samuel, Miranda, Theo, Rafael, Henry, and Reuven).
The family expresses its gratitude to Drs. Alexis Eastman and Anne Braus, the Capitol Lakes Health Center staff, and Interim Hospice Care staff, especially Gill Robertson and Erin Patten, for the thoughtful and diligent care they provided to make Bill’s final days peaceful. In lieu of flowers, charitable contributions in Bill’s memory may be made to one of the organizations he supported: The Jackson Laboratory (https://www.jax.org/); American Players Theatre’s Apprentice Program (https://americanplayers.org); or Madison Public Schools Foundation (https://schoolsmakemadison.org/). A celebration of Bill Dove’s life will be held in Madison, WI at Capitol Lakes on June 21st for family and friends.