The University of Alberta banner is flying at half-mast from May 6 - 10, 2021 in remembrance of Mr. Kevin Dietrich, senior lab technologist with the Department of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.
Kevin Dietrich
We are sorry to say that Kevin Dietrich passed away suddenly on April 7, 2021. Kevin was an invaluable staff member of the Department of Pediatrics Division of iHOPE.
Kevin started work at the University of Alberta as a research technician in 1985, while completing his undergraduate degree. He worked with Malcolm Paterson on BRCA gene in breast cancer until Paterson left the university. Kevin graduated from the U of A in 1994 with a B.Sc. degree with specialization in genetics.
Over the next 25 years, Kevin managed two different labs, both of which focused on pediatric oncology research. Initially, Kevin worked with Paul Grundy for 10 years. In the Grundy lab, Kevin did multiple projects. One example is that he supervised, helped plan and managed the North American-wide childhood renal tumors tissue bank, including tumor tissue, DNA, and peripheral blood DNA from patients and their parents. This unique bank eventually included over 3,000 patients before it was moved to Columbus, Ohio where all the Children’s Oncology Group tissue banks were centralized.
Kevin then went on to work with professor Lesley Mitchell over the last 15 years. In the Mitchell lab, Kevin did so many projects. He recently completed a plasma and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) biomarker study in 200 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) from over 40 pediatric centres around the world. Kevin generated over 30,000 plasma and SNP biomarker data points for developing models for risk of adverse outcomes in childhood ALL . The project is in collaboration with a major pharmaceutical company and Kevin was personally praised by the company’s bioinformatics chief scientist on the quality of the data. He was also doing ground-breaking work investigating toxicity effects of chemotherapy on gene and protein expression in pediatric neuroblastoma and Wilms tumor cell lines. Plus much, much, more.
In short, over his research career, Kevin made significant contributions to better treatment of children with cancer.
Kevin trained and mentored dozens and dozens of students in the lab. Whether they were post doctoral fellows, PhD, M.Sc., or summer students, he was always patient and helpful. He would spend enormous amounts of time with students troubleshooting experiments and teaching techniques. As well, with colleagues from other labs, Kevin was the go-to person for helping people develop or troubleshoot laboratory techniques. He always made time to help others. If he saw you needed a hand, he was there for you. Kevin loved science and loved being in the lab. He was a superb scientist and a kind and generous human being. He will be missed by many people.
Our heartfelt condolences go out to his wife Susanne, their three sons David (Sophie), Chris (Kat) and Nicholas and Kevin’s brothers Kent and Todd.
Those who wish to send expressions of sympathy to Kevin's family may do so on this online bulletinboard.
—By Judith Chrystal and Nicole Firth, on behalf of the Department of Pediatrics
For information about lowering the University of Alberta banner, visit the In Memoriam webpage.