Edgar J DaSilva - Online Memorial Website

From: Kazuo Komagata
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 7:23 AM
To: Hoareau, Lucy
Subject: Re. Dr. E. DaSilva

Dear doctor Lucy,

I received your E-mail message with Dr. Edgar DaSilva through Prof. H. Sugawara, WDCM, in Japan. In response to your request, I would like to write a few lines with him. Please feel free to edit my manuscript to fit in with your context. 

I express my deepest condolences to passing away of Dr. Edgar DaSilva. I have had a long acquaintance with him since I met him at Brisbane, Australia in 1975, where the meeting/workshop for preservation of genetic pools and establishment of culture collections was held under the sponsorship of UNEP, UNESCO, ICRO, and WFCC. He jointed the meeting/workshop and signed the certificate of participants as the representative of UNESCO.

Dr. DaSilva visited developing countries very often as the officer of UNESCO and MIRCENs. He worked for the development of culture collections of microorganisms and biotechnology, and encouraged personnel and students in the countries. He was very open-minded and kind to all persons around him.

Dr. DaSilva was elected the Vice President of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) in 1973 at the 2nd International Congress of Culture Collections (ICCC-2) at San Paulo. He served on the WFCC from 1973 to 1976, and he made effort to strengthen the WFCC (Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 25, 90-94 1975).

I personally worked with Dr. DaSilva for the MIRCEN network and the WFCC many times abroad and in Japan as well. He really devoted his life to progress of developing countries and making WFCC and MIRCENs recognized as the international organizations of culture collections and biotechnology.

Dr. Kazuo Komagata

(Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, the former director of Japan Collection of Microorganisms, and the former director of World Data Center)  

Dear Lucy,

Thank you for your latest message. The followings are some brief comments on Edgar’s involvement with my mushroom training and research programs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We became acquainted at The Coordinating Board Meeting of the UNESCO Regional Network for Microbiology in Southeast Asia in 1976. In the following year, 1977, we first collaborated to organize the first UNESCO mushroom training course for three week in Hong Kong. After that we really because close friends and collaborators and he supported me organizing several international and regional conferences on applied microbiology particularly in mushroom biotechnology. Over 30 years of our friendship, I can say that “Edgar is a brilliant thinker, a superb writer, an efficient and effective administrator, a kind and decent man, and a royal friend”.

Regards,

S. T.

Professor ST Chang, OBE

Emeritus Professor of Biology

From: Brink, Johan
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 7:59 PM
To: Hoareau, Lucy
Subject: RE: Sad News
Importance: High

Dear Lucy

Thank you for your e-mail. This is indeed sad news. Please convey my deepest sympathy to the family members of Edgar Da Silva. Please find the following comments regarding my involvement with Edgar (see below):

" I met Edgar DaSilva in 1994 in South Africa during a Biotechnology Training Course that was sponsored by UNESCO. At that time I worked for the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in South Africa and I was in charge of a Biotechnology Division of one of the Institutes of the ARC. I can recall that I was impressed by the vision that Edgar had at that time to establish Biotechnology Training hubs in developing countries. In 1995, I received a request from Prof. Indra Vasil, Chairman of the Biotechnology Action Council of UNESCO, to establish a Biotechnology Education and Training Center (BETCEN) for Africa, at the ARC-Roodeplaat  Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Institute in Pretoria. The ARC was very enthusiastic about the concept and the BETCEN was established and operational during late 1995. Edgar DaSilva was the driving force behind the BETCEN concept and the implementation and administration of the 5 BETCENs. The BETCEN concept was very successful in Africa and the impacts were tremendous - over 200 African scientists trained through a mixture of short term training and medium term fellowships during the period 1995 - 2000. I will therefore always remember Edgar DaSilva as a hard, but fair, taskmaster and  a leader with a passion for development and capacity building in the developing world. I have to give all the credit to Edgar for setting me, personally, on the path that I am still on today, i.e. focussed on Development and Capacity Building initiatives in developing countries. Even though I relocated to the United States in 2001 and took up a position at Michigan State University, I am still utilizing the expertise that I gained from my involvement as a BETCEN Director for Africa and the interactions I had with Edgar DaSilva during that time. Except for occasional e-mails, I have not had regular contact with Edgar during the last few years. I was therefore saddened by the news of his passing and I hereby express my deepest sympathy to the remaining family members of Edgar DaSilva. May he rest in peace."

Kind regards

Johan Brink

Dr Johan Brink

Director: Agricultural Biotechnology Support Unit

Institute of International Agriculture

Michigan State University