Dr. Oleg B. Ptitsyn (deceased 1999) was the Head of Protein Physics Laboratory at the Institute of Protein Research, Russian Academy of Sciences and a Visiting Scientist at the Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology, Molecular Structure Section, National Cancer Institute, USA. He was also a member of the European Academy of Sciences and winner of the National Prize of Russia in Science (1999). He authored about two hundred and fifty papers on protein physics and polymer. Their laboratory is one of the most distinguished in the world for its work in protein physics. It is one of the few laboratories outside the USA to receive support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.