Physiology professor, 82, dies after 30 years of teaching at U.

Physiology Professor Emeritus Arnost Kleinzeller, a famed biochemist, died of lung cancer last Saturday. Physiology Professor Emeritus Arnost Kleinzeller died of lung cancer last Saturday at age 82. Kleinzeller, an internationally known physiologist and biochemist, spent 30 years at the University teaching graduate students and conducting research for the department -- as well as sharing his enthusiasm in the subjects with student and colleague alike. "In many ways he had strict standards," Physiology and Medicine Professor Mortimer Civan said. "Every student and colleague should be concerned with strict attention to detail, and these were his passions." Students also benefitted from Kleinzeller's meticulous nature, according to former student James Mullin, who studied with Kleinzeller from 1975 to 1982 and assisted the professor in his research. Mullin said Kleinzeller influenced him to choose cell physiology as a career. The two remained in contact with until the professor's death. After students left Kleinzeller's lab, they were "ready for battle," to obtain research and grant funding, Mullin said, adding that Kleinzeller had the "Rumplestiltskin" approach to research. "He would dump research in front of you and say 'goodbye.' With the project he gave you, he would have expertise on half of it and you had to go and find the other half," Mullin said. "It was a lot of responsibility for the student, but it was very good for the student." Kleinzeller continued to demand excellence from his students even in the last weeks of his life, forming a committee to examine graduate students theses, which he believed were not meeting suitable academic standards,said Morris Hamburg, a professor emeritus of statistics and operations research at Wharton. "In the last conversation I had with him, he was barely coherent and he wasn't talking about his problems," Hamburg said. "He was saying how it was important to improve the graduate education in biological sciences and the doctorate dissertations and about what the University could be and should be." Mullin noted that he definitely "got his money's worth" from Kleinzeller's cell physiology course, describing it as one of the best graduate biosciences classes at Penn. He added that Kleinzeller cared about his students and chided professors for devoting energy to their research -- and not to their students. Kleinzeller was not only dedicated to his students. The professor also contributed to his chosen field by publishing more than 150 scientific papers. His work dealt primarily with how kidney and other epithelial cells regulate water and salts, as well as with how these cells move sugars from one side of the tissue to the other. He also established the scientific series "Current Topics in Membranes and Transport." And Kleinzeller formed a "schmoozers' group," 10 years ago in which he and professors from a variety of disciplines would assign themselves articles about debatable issues in the sciences and public policy and have discussions every two weeks. Kleinzeller, who was born in Czechoslovakia, escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to Poland and England, where he worked with Nobel Laureate Professor Hans Krebs. "He was a beautiful person who, despite terrible experiences in life, never bore any rancor to anyone," Hamburg said. "He was a mensch."