Zdeněk Šesták and Photosynthetica, a tribute

Honoring Hartmut Karl Lichtenthaler, innovative pioneer of photosynthesis, on his 90^th birthday

“…Krasnovsky (1913Krasnovsky ( -1993 for Krasnovsky, see Karapetyan and Govindjee 2014) from Moscow (Russia), Melvin Calvin (1911), and Daniel Arnon (1910-1994 both from UC Berkeley, andTrevor Goodwin (1916-2008), from Wales, as well as many young scientists then including one of us (Govindjee). In addition, Zdeněk Šesták (1932-2008 from the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague was also there, who in 1967 founded the journal Photosynthetica, in which authors from the East and West could publish their research findings (see Govindjee et al 2002, Lichtenthaler 2018.…”

“…In addition, Hartmut organized a one-year-stay for Roman Hák (from Lubomir Nátrꞌs group of the Charles University of Prague) as a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory in Karlsruhe (see Hák et al 1993) Historical reporter: Hartmut Lichtenthaler has described wonderfully well the history and the development of co-operation and the international symposia series, such as the FESPP (Lichtenthaler 2004a), as well as that of the International Symposia on Plant Lipids, the ISPLs, being held every two years, which he had organized in 1976, in Karlsruhe, and transformed them to international meetings (Lichtenthaler 2004b). In addition, Hartmut has also authored several obituaries/tributes, or historical notes on Andy Benson (Lichtenthaler et al 2015), Roland Douce (Joyard and Lichtenthaler 2019), Melvin Calvin (Govindjee et al 2020), and Zdeněk Šesták (Lichtenthaler 2018). In addition, he has written an article on Govindjee, one of the authors of the current article (see Lichtenthaler 2020).…”

HISTORYMy contact and cooperation with Govindjee over the last five decades: Chlorophyll fluorescence and Rebeiz Foundation

“…Leading photosynthesis researchers participated, such as Alexander A. Krasnowsky (1913Krasnowsky ( -1993, Moscow, Melvin Calvin (1911), Berkeley, and Trevor Goodwin (1916-2008, Wales, as well as many younger scientists and also Zdeněk Šesták , who in 1967 in Prague had founded the journal Photosynthetica (Govindjee et al 2002, Lichtenthaler 2018. In fact, this meeting was the starting point for international cooperation that continued for the next decades.…”

“…I also continued to write on historical matters in plant physiology, such as the history of the Federation of European Societies of Plant Physiology (FESPP) (Lichtenthaler 2004a) and of the International Symposia on Plant Lipids, ISPL (Lichtenthaler 2004b). Moreover, for several journals I started to write very personal tributes for colleagues of our photosynthetic community, who had passed away, e.g., Zdeněk Šesták, the founder of the journal Photosynthetica (Lichtenthaler 2018) and Roland Douce, who is wellknown for his research on the chloroplast envelope (Joyard and Lichtenthaler 2019) and also Peter Böger, Konstanz (Lichtenthaler 2016). Here, I followed the excellent examples that Govindjee had written in a very personal way about other colleagues.…”

“…Since at the Award ceremony in 2009 Andy Benson, then 92 years old, could no longer travel to Champaign, it was Govindjee -wearing a bow tie of Andy -who accepted this LTA-Award on behalf of Andy Benson. Later, further recipients of the LTA-Award of the Rebeiz Foundation were e.g., Robert Blankenship, St. Louis;Bob Buchanan, Berkeley;Roland Douce (1939-2018andDiter von Wettstein (1929-2017), Pullman, and in total 12 recipients (see Table 1). In 2015, the decision Board of the Rebeiz Foundation selected me to receive the LTA-Award for photosynthesis.…”