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The discovery by Lolley and his colleagues nearly 30 years ago that a single molecule called cyclic GMP was of crucial importance in vision formed a basis for understanding mechanisms that result in diminished vision and blindness.
Lolley died at his home in Pasadena, Calif., working at his computer on a third volume of memoirs that describe his family's Irish roots and immigration to rural Kansas in 1878.
Before joining USC six years ago as a professor of cell and neurobiology and ophthalmology and associate dean for scientific affairs, Lolley had been on the faculty at UCLA for 30 years. where he was chair of the department of anatomy and cell biology.
Lolley's research was intended to develop vision as a model for the study of neurochemistry, according to his wife and collaborator, molecular neurobiologist Cheryl Craft, who is chair of the department of cell and neurobiology at USC.
He was the first to identify the defect in cyclic GMP that leads to inherited blindness.
This initial discovery led ultimately to the cloning of the gene responsible for inherited retinal degeneration in mice and dogs.
Similar gene defects are now known to exist in humans. His findings also provided the first insights into the mechanisms responsible for the class of diseases called retina's pigmentosa.
Throughout his scientific career, Lolley was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
His early research began at Maudsley Hospital of the University of London, England, and McLean Hospital, a division of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he trained as a research fellow in neuropathology. It blossomed when he joined UCLA as an assistant professor of anatomy in 1966 and started an independent laboratory at the V A.
Born in Blaine, Kansas, on May 25,1933, Lolley earned a bachelor s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Kansas in 1955 and set out to be a drugstore pharmacist.
He later told Craft, "I realized I wanted to do something that would seriously challenge me intellectually and creatively."
He earned a doctorate in physiology and biochemistry from the University of Kansas in 1961.
He then launched a research career that would bring him honor and stature as a pivotal figure in understanding the complex cascade of physiological events that makes up the sense of sight.
His long-time colleague at UCLA Dean Bok, described Lolley as 'brilliant, yet extremely modest."
"Mostly," Bok said, "I remember Dick as one whose personal style was one of modesty and fairness, both as a scientist and as an administrator."
Over the years, he published more than 60 scientific papers and dozens of book chapters that are a part of the foundation for widespread scientific research that is closing in on the root causes of retinal diseases.
Lolley served as trustee and president of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) from 1991 to 1992.
He was awarded ARVO's Proctor Research Medal in 1994, one of many accolades he received, including the Jules Stein Living Tribute Award by Retinitis Pigmetosa International in 1985, the Alcon Institute Award for Excellence in Vision Research in 1991 and the R.S. Dow Neurological Sciences Award in 1992.
Lolley was recruited to the Keck School of Medicine of USC in 1994, where his role was to foster the education of graduate students and the biomedical research in which they participated.
He took on the most difficult issues in academic science, such as those involving the use of human subjects in research, and scientific ethics, and made the Keck School's solutions models for others.
In his responsibility to oversee the medical school's master's and Ph.D. programs, he promoted the relatively new concept of interdisciplinary research.
Dick's keen sense of humor was echoed by his passion for graduate student education," said Stephen J. Ryan, dean of the Keck School.
"He cared deeply about supporting the careers of junior research faculty, and launching graduate students on a sound career path."
At both UCLA and USC, Lolley took pride in knowing on a firs, name basis ail graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty.
He took many under his wing and reveled in mentoring one-on-one.
His marriage with Cheryl Craft brought together their five adult children in an expanded family, and his effervescent demeanor embraced a wide variety of new interests. He took up gardening to express his passion for the spirituality of nature, surrounding their Pasadena home with exotic flowering plants; cooking, where Craft described him as a "kitchen biochemist": writing, including the memoirs and unpublished fiction, and volunteering in the library of the Pacific Asia Museum.
Besides his widow, Lolley is survived by daughters Melissa of Santa Barbara and Cybele of Oakland, and Emily Lolley-Kohl of Prescott, Ariz.; Craft's sons Tyler Cormney of Venice and Ryan Cormney of Seattle, Wash.; sisters, Catherine Burke and Ellen Rangel, both of Overlard Park, Kan, and a brother, Gregg of Stafford, Mo.
The family has established in his memory an endowment fund to provide travel awards for young scientists to attend the annual scientific meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. Contributions made payable to "USC" (Note "Lolley Memorial Fund' on the memo line) can be sent to the Dept. of Cell and Neurobiology, 1333 San Pablo St., BMT401, Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90089-9112.
