I first met Amos in person in 1994 when I worked at the ICGEB in Trieste. My boss at the time, Sándor Pongor, brought him to the computer room where I sat and said, "Kirill, you have to talk to him. Amos, you have to talk to this guy" and left. So we talked.

I said "in person" because we've been in touch before. I blame (gratefully) Amos for me being at the ICGEB in the first place. How? Well, I se…

Amos Bairoch was not only a pioneer in bioinformatics; having met him, I can also say that he was one of the kindest people in our community. I will remember him not only for his scientific achievements, but for his humility, enthusiasm, open-mindedness, and genuine warmth.

I am deeply saddened hearing about Amos' passing. He was a truly remarkable scientist with encyclopedic knowledge about proteins and their bulding blocks.

I first met Amos at my first scientific conference ever and was deeply impressed by his knowledge, his energy, and his never-ending flow of ideas. At that time, being a young student, I thought that this must be the way scientists are. Now, 30+ y…

Amos was a superstar of bioinformatics, biological databases, and biocuration. He wrote the playbook we are still using today. And he was a lovely guy, and will be sorely missed.

When Dr Bairoch was in Colombia in 2013, I remember an uncomplicated & humble man but brilliant. His professional path and his only presence were an inspiration for me. Scientific world will remember him.

It is hard to believe that Amos is no longer with us. An amazing scientist, a beautiful person, a solid presence that created much of what we do and how we think today.

Amos and I met when we were both scruffy looking graduate students in 1984 and our computer programs were being shown in adjacent company booths as Amos has described:

https://www.academia.edu/2958783/Serendipity_in_bioinformatics_the_tribulations_of_a_Swiss_bioinformatician_through_exciting_times_?source=swp_share

Among the sea of people in suits and ties, we each noticed the other long haired guy …

I first "met" Amos by phone in 1988. I was a post-doc in Dublin and had just published the first version of Clustal for PCs. The phone rang and I answered and was hit by an avalanche of ideas and words and greetings. It was Amos in full flow. He wanted to include Clustal in his recently released sequence analysis package PC Gene and we discussed algorithms and methods and software for about a…

Amos was a precursor in the truest sense of the word. He built things before there was a name for the field, before recognition or metrics, simply because he felt they needed to exist for science to move forward.

What always struck me was the complete absence of hidden agenda. His choices were guided by clarity of purpose and intellectual honesty. This earned him deep trust across the community.

Bey…

Amos was not only a giant of bioinformatics and biocuration, but one of the nicest people I've met in academia. His support and advice were invaluable when we were establishing our own database projects, and I will always remember how warmly he welcomed us to SIB when I arrived in Switzerland 20 years ago. We miss him as individuals and as a community.