Philip Eric Bourne, a distinguished Australian bioinformatician, writer, and visionary leader in data science, passed away on March 8, 2026, at the age of 72, following a protracted battle with mesothelioma. His death marks the loss of a pioneering figure who profoundly shaped the fields of structural bioinformatics, scholarly communication, and the integration of big data into biomedical research. Bourne's career spanned academia, government, and industry, leaving an indelible mark on scientific discovery and education.

Born in 1953, Philip Bourne embarked on his academic journey in Australia, earning his undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in chemistry from Flinders University in South Australia by 1980. His early research laid the groundwork for a career that would bridge the complex worlds of biology and computational science, a testament to his diverse intellectual interests and foresight into the burgeoning importance of data.

After completing his PhD, Bourne moved to the University of Sheffield for postdoctoral research from 1979 to 1981, before transitioning to Columbia University in New York in 1981. His journey continued to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 1995, where he served as a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology. It was during these formative years that he began to establish himself as a leading voice in the emerging discipline of bioinformatics.

Bourne was a fervent advocate for open-access literature and software, a principle he championed throughout his career. He became co-director of the Protein Data Bank in 1999, a crucial worldwide repository for three-dimensional structures of large molecules. In 2005, he co-founded and became the founding Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Computational Biology, an influential open-access journal that significantly advanced the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

His leadership extended to prominent scientific organizations, including serving as President of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) from 2002 to 2003. He was recognized with numerous accolades for his contributions, including the Benjamin Franklin Award in 2009 for his advocacy of open science and the Jim Gray e-Science Award in 2010 for his impact on data-intensive science.

From 2014 to 2017, Bourne served as the first Associate Director for Data Science at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he spearheaded the Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative. In this pivotal role, he was instrumental in shaping national data policies and infrastructure, aiming to accelerate biomedical discovery through enhanced data access, analysis, and training.

In 2017, Bourne accepted a transformative role as the founding dean of the School of Data Science at the University of Virginia (UVA). He envisioned a "school without walls," emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and the application of data science across diverse academic and medical fields to address societal challenges. Under his leadership, UVA established the nation's first stand-alone data science school, a testament to his vision and dedication.

Philip Bourne's legacy is further cemented by his prolific authorship, with hundreds of scientific articles and several books to his name, making him one of UVA's most cited researchers. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) in 2011, among other prestigious fellowships. His commitment to fostering the next generation of data scientists and his unwavering belief in the power of open, collaborative science will continue to inspire for years to come.

He is survived by his wife, Roma Chalupa, and their two children, Scott and Melanie. Philip Bourne's passing leaves a void in the scientific community, but his pioneering spirit and foundational contributions to data science will endure as a guiding light for future innovations.