Nobel Prize winner remains active at 90

Herbert A. Hauptman, Ph.D., right, celebrates his 90th birthday at the Jewish Community Center's Benderson family building with friends Alex and Roza Shnayder, and Ida Schaer on Feb. 16. His actual birthday is Valentine's Day. Photo by John Rusac Purchase photos at www.BeeNews.com

Herbert A. Hauptman, Ph.D., Nobel laureate and professor at University at Buffalo, turned 90 on Feb. 14.

He has been swimming at the Jewish Community Center's Benderson family building in Getzville at least three-five times a week for more than 14 years. He frequents the pool with his wife, Edith.

Hauptman takes an interest in keeping both his body and his mind fit and plans to keep working as long as possible with no thoughts of retirement.

He is a world renowned mathematician who pioneered and developed a mathematical method that has changed the whole field of chemistry and opened a new era in research in determination of molecular structures of crystallized materials.

Today, Hauptman's direct methods, which he has continued to improve and refine, are routinely used to solve complicated structures. It was the application of this mathematical method to a wide variety of chemical structures that led the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to name Hauptman recipient of the 1985 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, he has received many other honors throughout the years. Hauptman has also authored more than 170 publications, including journal articles, research papers, chapters and books. In 1970, he joined the crystallographic group of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (formerly the Medical Foundation of Buffalo) of which he became research director in 1972.

He currently serves as president of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute as well as research professor in the Department of Biophysical Sciences and adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science at UB.