Dr. George Harold Patterson passed away on June 20, 2021 due to an extended illness. He is survived by wife Susanne Etta Neumann and children Isabella Katarina Patterson and Max B. Patterson. He is the son of Katherine Patterson of Lutts, TN and the late Waylon Patterson. He is brother to Marsha Walker and Lisa Price of Alabama, Darryl Patterson and wife Tina of Cypress Inn, TN and late brother Jeffery Patterson and former sister-in-law Cindy Patterson Miller, and late sister Cynthia Patterson. He is the son-in-law of Harald and Barbera Glawe and brother-in-law to Eva Glawe-Then and Ingo Then; uncle to 13 nieces and nephews and late niece Samantha and four great-nieces and nephews. His maternal grandparents were George and Effie Scott and paternal grandparents were Luther and Zella Patterson.
Dr. Patterson was born in Wayne County, Tennessee and graduated Collinwood High School in 1988. He graduated University of North Alabama in 1992 with a Bachelor’s degree. He received a Ph.D in Physiology and Microbiology from Vanderbilt University in 1999 under Prof. David Piston.
While working in Dr. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz’s lab in the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development he developed the first photoactivable green fluorescent protein which enabled the development of the super-resolution technique known as photoactivated localization microscopy which was developed by Drs. Eric Betzig and Harald Hess and for which Dr. Betzig received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014.
In 2009 he accepted an independent investigator appointment at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Engineering and became tenured in the NIBIB Intramural Section on Biophotonics in 2021. He was also honored as the 2021 recipient of the Royal Microscopical Scientific Achievement Award.
He was loved by every person he ever came into contact with and remained the most humble of souls regardless of his multiple accomplishments in life. He loved music of many genres.
Visitation and funeral services were held in the chapel of Collins Funeral Home at 500 University Blvd. West, Silver Spring, MD on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Interment followed at Parklawn Memorial Park at 12800 Veirs Mill Rd., Rockville, MD at 1pm July 1, 2021.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research (https://lustgarten.org) in honor of Dr. George Harold Patterson.
His Wayne County family plan a memorial later in July for friends and family here.
