Aaron J. Shatkin was well known for his work on reoviruses beginning in the 1960s in his laboratory at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, NJ and then at Rutgers University. He was among the first to appreciate that virus particles contained many different enzymes, such as RNA polymerase and poly(A) polymerase, that could be readily purified and used to study aspects of the viral replication cycle. His studies of reovirus mRNAs revealed an unusual methylated, blocked 5′-terminal structure, m-7G(5′)ppp(5′)G-MpCp-. But I also have some personal memories of Aaron that I'd like to relate.
