Ivan Krekule, Ing., PhD (1934-2000)

It is my sad duty to inform the biomedical engineering community of the death of Ivan Krekule, Ing., PhD, Member of the Board of the Czech Society for Biomedical Engineering and Medical Informatics.

Ivan Krekule graduated from university in 1957. He became interested in research work immediately. After a short period at three different research institutes, he started his scientific career at the Institute of Physiology of Czechoslovak (now Czech) Academy of Sciences in 1963, where he had worked until his death - for the last eleven years as Head of the Biomathematical Department.

Ivan Krekule was one of the founders of the Czech Society for Biomedical Engineering in 1978. He was a permanent member of the board of our society. He was responsible for foreign co-operation, and from 1990 to 1994 he was, in addition, the scientific secretary of our society. Although prior to 1990 the conditions for foreign scientific contacts in our republic had not been favourable, Ivan managed to surmount the difficulties our country faced. He brought foreign specialists to Czechoslovakia many times and, in co-operation with them, arranged conferences, prepared lectures and strove to make biomedical engineering attractive for young scientists. In 1998, he was awarded Honorary Membership of the Czech Society for Biomedical Engineering and Medical Informatics.

Ivan Krekule was a scientist with a european and world vision. He correctly showed the importance of mathematical morphology to automatic imaging. He studied the consequences of stereology on imaging result interpretation and organised several international events in this field. He was also very active in publishing.

Ivan Krekule was a member of many international programme committees, and the information he brought back from foreign symposia, conferences and congresses and published in Czech journals was very interesting.

Ivan Krekule was not only a knowledgeable scientist, electronics expert and a good organiser, he was also a reliable partner whose ideas were always fresh and topical, a pleasant companion and, above all, a gentleman of high moral standing.

The biomedical engineering community will, I am sure, feel his death as a big loss. People who knew him personally have lost a genuine friend.

Jaromír Cmíral, Ing., PhD, DSc
President of Czech Society for Biomedical Engineering and Medical Informatics