Ed Hoover was born on November 18, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois, where he received his Bachelor of Science and then Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 1967. Ed received his Master of Science and PhD in 1970 at Ohio State University, completing a residency and board certification in veterinary pathology in 1972. He launched his research career by studying viruses of cats, focusing on feline leukemia virus.

In 1981, Ed became head of the Department of Pathology at Colorado State University (CSU) and moved to Fort Collins, Colorado. Over his 40-plus-year career at CSU, he built the tradition of multidisciplinary biomedical research training for veterinarians. His laboratory conducted seminal work in feline virology and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) research. In collaboration with colleagues, Ed’s lab developed the first successful vaccine for feline leukemia virus, which is now used worldwide to immunize millions of cats against leukemia.

More recently, his work on prion diseases uncovered key details about transmission and detection of chronic wasting disease (CWD) when a student working on a pathology residency, asked Ed to serve as her mentor on a CWD project. Ed told her that he was flattered, but that his work was on viruses and he didn’t know anything about prions.  But the student persisted and piqued his curiosity, realizing that CWD was similar to feline leukemia virus in many ways. That interaction led to a long-time collaboration that ultimately demonstrated how deer were infected by oral exposure long before prions enter the brain, as well as numerous other advances in our understanding of chronic wasting disease. In recognition of his work, Ed was named one of twelve University Distinguished Professors at CSU in 2004, elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014, National Academy of Inventors in 2017, and received numerous other awards.

Ed, however, considered his most treasured accomplishment to be mentoring 27 graduate students, mostly DVM-PhDs, whose inquisitiveness and creativity he nurtured. Many of Ed’s former mentees are leading today’s veterinary medical research. In addition to his own students, Ed helped secure grants that funded post-graduate training for over three dozen individuals. He was also instrumental in CSU’s combined DVM-PhD training program, which has received national recognition.

These accolades illustrate Ed’s tremendous impact in the scientific community, but do not capture the nature of his life force. His unique, relentless curiosity included many topics, such as the beauty and form of structures, the ways art and science intersect, human nature vs. nurture, and how words develop meanings. To a person, those who have known Ed recall how a conversation with him would inevitably wander from the initial topic into a cavernous maze of associations, intriguing and often humorous. Ed felt grateful and fortunate to have seen his beloved Cubs finally win a World Series. His other obsessions were too numerous to count: trees, very specific coffee preparation, daily exercise regimens, correct grammar (preferably with wordplay), beautifully addressed package return labels, low-fat meals, fashionable and/or comfortable clothes within his color wheel, dental hygiene, automobile type and maintenance, shoes (for himself and family members), ample stores of tape in well-organized boxes, a love of ocean surf yet a fear of drowning, watering the hell out of countless plants, adjusting light and sound levels, finding the perfect seat in a restaurant, and optimization of life in all ways.