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Obituary
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The late Carlos Samour (right) earlier this year endowed the Samour Family Professorship in Organic Chemisty. Jeffrey Henderson, dean of arts and sciences, presented Samour (GRS’50) with a symbolic chair at a ceremony in April. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky |
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Carlos Samour (GRS’50), a pioneer in the field of polymer chemistry, a longtime supporter of CAS and GRS, and a 1994 winner of BU’s distinguished service to alma mater award, died on October 3 of pneumonia. He was 84.
Samour, founder and chairman of MacroChem Corporation, a specialty pharmaceutical firm based in Lexington, Mass., earned his doctorate in organic chemistry from BU in 1950. In the mid-1980s, one of his first successes in pharmaceutical research was the development of a more effective cement to hold brace brackets against teeth without causing a mottling pattern. He also patented a topical drug-absorption agent called SEPA that delivers drugs into the bloodstream through the skin at a constant rate.
Earlier this year he funded the Samour Family Professorship in Organic Chemistry, the first endowed chair in the CAS department of chemistry. James Panek, a CAS professor of chemistry, was named to the professorship in April 2004. Dennis Berkey, former dean of arts and sciences and University provost, and now president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, told the Boston Globe that Samour had saved the money for the professorship over many years, while also supporting BU financially and serving on the dean’s advisory committee. “Carlos was a wonderfully warm human being, a very loyal alumnus,” Berkey said. “He was especially encouraging of the relationship between the medical school and the arts and sciences program, and understood the power of science in developing medical technologies and therapeutics.”
In appreciation for his education at BU, Samour recently donated more than half a million dollars in MacroChem stock to the Samour Family Trust Fund, which he established in 1986 to enhance relationships among researchers at the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the School of Medicine, and to improve University-industry relations.
Samour also donated $10,000 in MacroChem stock to the new Arts and Sciences Endowment Fund, whose income will support faculty professorships, fellowships for graduate students, and undergraduate programs.
Samour was born in El Salvador in 1920. In 1942 he received his B.A. and in 1944 his M.A. in chemistry from American University of Beirut. He received his M.S. in organic chemistry from MIT in 1947. After earning his Ph.D., he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston University until 1952. He worked as a research chemist for the Kendall Company for five years, and was then appointed director of its Theodore Clark Laboratory. In 1973, he was promoted to director of the company’s Lexington Research Laboratory. Samour formed MacroChem in 1982.
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October 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations