To Laura's family:

I have known Laura for almost 20 years. We met in almost all of the Plasmid Biology conferences since 1994! I loved Laura's way to explain her science to the plasmid community, her way to explain complicated molecular mechanisms in a simple "graphic" way!

I enjoyed chatting with her, laughing with her and sometimes having a nice glass of wine together after a long meeting/conference day.

I will always remember Laura as a charming warmhearted lady, as an ideal for young female scientists!

I miss you, Laura!

A huge debt of gratitude.

During my years as a graduate student in Karin Ippen-Ihler's lab the scientific exchanges with Laura and her lab were constant. However, it is when Karin passed away about 6 months before my thesis defense that Laura stood out for me. She came to Texas to help comfort Karin's family, sort out the lab finances and strain collection. In that time, she also worked on finishing a paper that Karin had been keenly working on.

Those eerie days in that big empty lab with both of us mourning were probably some of the most difficult for both of us.

Despite it all, before she returned to Edmonton, she made sure that everything was set for my defense and that i would get my degree before the lab was shuttered. Even in Edmonton and until my defense she remained in contact to make sure everything was going smoothly.

Laura and I remained in touch beyond those Texas days and until her retirement directly and indirectly as i found myself working with 2 of her former trainees who came to NIH.

I'll always be grateful for all her support.

To her family, my sincere condolences on your loss.

Laura and I were long time colleagues and friends at the UofA. Soon after I arrived at UofA in the late 1990’s Laura and I struck up a collaboration to study plasmid DNA in bacteria. We had a long and productive collaboration with many papers, lots of great times and students. Laura really helped me get my start at the UofA, and she was a fantastic mentor for our students that came through our labs over the years.

Laura was such a kind and fun-loving person. Scientific meetings with visiting scientists were often organized to involve an adventurous hike in the Rockies and I remember a particularly fun hike with a visiting Austrian scientist, Gunther Koraimann, who gave us lessons in “scree-skiing” down Coral Ridge. It was a little terrifying but somehow we all survived.

Laura loved children and I also remember a day where she took a morning off to show my 5 year old son Sam the extensive insect collection at UofA. Sam fancied himself quite the entomologist and he spent the morning explaining the insects to Laura. Laura and Sam had a real blast that day.

Many of Laura’s scientific colleagues have reached out on hearing the sad news. Laura was tremendously respected and loved by her community of scientific friends.

I worked at a travel agency on the U of A campus during the 1980s and 90s, and Laura was a client of the agency. I didn’t know her well, but she left me with an enduring memory of her charming smile, soft-spoken approach, and gentle, genial manner. My sincere condolences to her family.

I too spent my summer student years in Bill's lab, where Laura becaem my mentor. She not only taught me science, but instilled in me a love of hiking and appreciation of the mountains, alpine meadows and alpine flowers. Laura made the hike along the Rockwall in a horrible blizzard a memorable one! Hugs and loads of love to you, Aimee and Kenny! (Dont know if you remember, but I also used to baby sit you!). Natalie Yanchar

My sincere condolences to Laura’s children and grandchildren. I first met Laura in 1990 when I was a young first-year graduate student on my very first trip to the United States from Europe. We ended up sharing a room at the ‘Plasmid Biology conference in California. We reconnected later at other conferences, and during my visit to her department in Edmonton. At one point she and Ed decided that an annual trip to North Idaho in April provided them with the perfect mix of engaging in plasmid biology research, fun and interesting dinner conversations, and admiring the early flowers and birds of the Northwest. We were blessed. Their annual visits, which lasted till 2017, were always a lot of fun, and her feedback to the grad students and postdocs was always extremely valuable. As others stated here, she was not only very smart and knowledgeable, but also very eager to share her insights with others. My lab undoubtedly benefited from her visits.

To me she represented the perfect combination of a thoughtful, very successful scientist and someone who enjoyed life and very much cherished her family and friends. She was a great mentor to me and I will miss her.

Laura was essential to the Plasmid Biology & Mobile Genetic Elements community especially to animate exchanges and discussions in a so friendly way! My condolences to her family and friends.

Laura loved to dance. I never saw her in better form than at the Mérida plasmid meeting in 1998, when one evening a group of us were taking our aperos on the terrace of a bar, a kind of thé-dansant place. She never lost heart as one after the other we partnered her on the floor only to demonstrate our relative ineptitude. And finally she was rewarded when taking a turn with Kurt Norstrom, who proved (to our immense surprise) to be a ballroom expert. Her delight was unforgettable.

In 2010, I started a research group, and chose conjugation in G+ bacteria as topic. This implied –especially in the beginning- reading much literature, which is how I realized the large distribution of Dr. Laura Frost to the field. I consulted her several times, either by email or in person on conferences. Her answers were extensive and helpful; besides showing her deep knowledge on conjugation, these correspondences also showed her love and enthusiasm for science and her eagerness to share this with new generations of students. My condolences to her family and close friends.

Jun Lu, May 9, 2023

Dr. Frost was my Ph.D. supervisor starting September, 2000. She had been a great mentor and friend to me ever since. I remember she and her husband waited for me at the Edmonton International Airport until midnight when my plane was late for several hours. I remember the hours after hours she spent to prepare me for my first seminar in English. I remember numerous times of back and forth revising my manuscripts with her. I remember she and Ed drove me and my wife through beautiful mountains to a conference at Banff. I remember gatherings with her after her retirement when she was still so energetic as always. In my heart, she will always be remembered and missed.

I interacted with Laura regularly over the years, through activities like the old CSM western branch meetings, to serving on the exam committee of my inherited U of A based student. In 2000-2001 we tried to put together a Genome Canada grant application through Genome prairie. In her retirement she was kind enough to serve as external examiner for one of my PhD students in 2012. I was always impressed by her deep knowledge of the field, along with her irreverence and sense of fun. My condolences to her family.

Michael Hynes, University of Calgary.

Laura was my friend and mentor at the University of Alberta for 25 years. We met shortly after I got my position at UofA in 1996. I had come from my post-doc at Harvard where things were pretty intense. It was so refreshing to meet a scientist who was brilliant but still found joy in her work. I am a structural biologist and X-ray crystallographer and Laura and I worked to visualize many of her favorite conjugation proteins as they interacted with each other and their DNA and RNA partners. My lab is still working on some of the projects that initiated from key insights from Laura.

Laura was so much fun to work with. So many of us scientists are grumpy but Laura was always positive with that distinctive Laura twinkle in her eye. She was fantastic helping me get started here at UofA and she was extremely supportive of our students, who will greatly miss her.

I especially remember Laura opening up the University of Alberta insect collection to my, at that time, 5 year old son Sam. She took a morning out of her busy schedule as BioSci Chair to show Sam the collection. Sam was literally vibrating with excitement as Laura pulled out drawer after drawer of exotic insects. Laura was almost as excited as Sam. What a gift for inspiring young people. The last time I met Laura was over a year ago and we were both out hiking in Canmore. Laura was doing ok and she asked how Sam was doing and if he was still into bugs. I had hoped she had beat the cancer but unfortunately not. We will miss her.

So sorry to hear of Laura's passing. We hiked for many years with a group of friends in Canmore including Laura and Ed. Laura was often our leader particularly in the spring when we particlated in the annual wild flower search. Laura was also an expert on birds and could identify them even from their song. After Ed's passing and Laura moved to Calgary we kept in touch. If we encountered a bird or spotted a flower that we could not identify, we would send a quick text to Laura and we had our answer in seconds.

Marlene & David Ffoulkes-Jones

Laura graduated with her PhD two years before me from Bill Paranchych's (Willie Pili) lab in Biochemistry at the U of A. Laura was a mentor and collaborator and we remained close friends for our entire academic careers.

It was through our friendship that I met Laura's dad, Ray Lemieux, who was a pioneer in the field of carbohydrate chemistry. This greatly influenced my research into host cell receptors for bacterial pathogens, especially novel anti-infective drugs for treating gastrointestinal infections.

I will always cherish our friendship and many lab backpacking trips together. Sadly, Laura is gone but her many accomplishments live on in her ground breaking science, much of which is still being cited, and many students who graduated from her lab.

Laura was one of my very favorite people in the whole world, and a great scientist with whom I was fortunate to share many thoughts and ideas about bacterial conjugation throughout my career; her bug- E.coli- and my bug- Enterococcus- both carry out this process, but use different mechanisms to find and connect to recipient cells; we discussed these things endlessly. She was a mentor, and a long-time supporter of my work, as I was of hers. I had the great honor of reviewing a number of her papers and fantastic grant applications over the years. Budgets for Canadian research grants tend to be more lean than those from the US NIH, and Laura accomplished more great science per dollar of funding than anyone i ever knew. Most importantly she was incredibly kind and honest; it was a tremendous privilege to have known her.

Gary Dunny

University of Minnesota

I only knew Laura for the last couple years of her life but I will remember fondly for her wit, smile and presence. One of my favorite moments in which we connected was at John and Carmen’s wedding when she danced her heart out for multiple hours straight. She came to me and told me she loved me and I made her smile and laugh…and she needed that. It meant a lot to me at the time and still does.

I will miss sitting on the porch with her in the summer Brisco weather discussing birds and flowers. She’s the only person in the lahoda/lemieux clan that not only listened to my rants about spinning/knitting but engaged in a question period afterward! HA!

We didn’t know each other well, but she was a friend to me…and I’ll miss her dearly. I will never bird watch again and not think of Laura Frost. Lots of Love to the Lemieux family. Laura’s memory will live on in in the wonderful lives you all have built.