William S. Sly

William S. Sly (October 19, 1932 – May 31, 2025) was an American physician and scientist who, except for sabbatical years at Oxford and Stanford, spent his entire academic career in St. Louis, Missouri. Following medical school at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, he trained in internal medicine at Washington University in St. Louis under Carl V. Moore and in research laboratories at the Heart Institute at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland (under Earl Stadtman, Ph.D., and his protégé, Roy Vagelos, M.D., who were pioneers in enzymology and biochemistry), at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He then joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, where he directed the Division of Medical Genetics for 20 years. In 1984, he was recruited to Saint Louis University School of Medicine and appointed Alice A. Doisy Professor and chairman of the Edward A. Doisy Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He chaired that department for 26 years. In February 2007, he was also named the inaugural holder of the James B. and Joan C. Peter Endowed Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He became an emeritus professor in July 2014.