Lawrence Tesler, a pioneering computer scientist who helped make it easier for users to interact with computers, whether cutting and pasting text or selecting text by dragging a cursor through it, died Feb. 23 at his home in Portola Valley, CA. He was 74.

Mr. Tesler worked at a number of Silicon Valley’s most important companies, including Apple under Steve Jobs. But it was as a young researcher for Xerox at its Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s that he did his most significant work: helping to develop today’s style of computer interaction based on a graphical desktop metaphor and a mouse. Mr. Tesler was passionate about simplifying interaction with computers, the New York Times said.

Philip Leder, a biologist who helped decipher the genetic code and discovered a genetic cause of cancer, died Feb. 2 at his home in Chestnut Hill, MA. He was 85.

Dr. Leder helped accomplish the final step in deciphering the genetic code early in his career. He went on to help unravel the genetic mechanisms behind the great diversity of antibody molecules. He then discovered that the mismanagement of a gene that guides the growth of cells was a major cause of cancer.

In an interview for a 1994 book, The God I Believe In: Conversations About Judaism, the author, Joshua O. Haberman, asked him if he believed in the hope of a Messiah. Dr. Leder replied, “I do have faith that, as we come to understand ourselves more as beings, as individuals, as genetically programmed organisms, this knowledge will contribute to bettering the human condition. That’s my Messianic faith, in a way.”

Sy Sperling, a businessman who helped bring the hair-loss industry into the mainstream with huge late-night ad buys, died Feb. 19 at a hospital in Boca Raton, FL. He was 78.

Mr. Sperling achieved a kind of cult fame in the 1980s for his business, then called the Hair Club for Men. What propelled the concept was the ad kicker: he would hold up an old photo of his own bald pate and tell viewers, “I’m not only the Hair Club president, I’m also a client.” In 2000, Mr. Sperling sold his company to a private-equity firm for $45 million.

George Steiner, the celebrated literary critic, died Feb. 3 at his home in Cambridge, in the United Kingdom. He was 90. Steiner was born in Paris to Austrian parents who had emigrated to escape anti-Semitism. The family moved to New York City in 1940, refugees from the Holocaust.

While still in his 20s, Steiner filled the seat previously held by Edmund Wilson at The New Yorker, serving as senior book reviewer and contributing more than 200 reviews over 30 years. He also lectured at the University of Vienna, New York University, and Harvard.

“I can only explain what I perceive as the Jew’s mission: To be a guest of humanity,” Steiner said. “What must a guest do? He must live among people, wherever they may be. And a good guest, a worthy guest, leaves the place where he has been staying a bit cleaner, a bit more beautiful, a bit more interesting than he found it.”

Greta Beer, a Romanian Jew whose decades-long search for her father’s Swiss bank account helped force banks in Switzerland to compensate Holocaust victims and their heirs over lost assets, died Jan. 23 at her home in Brighton, MA. She was 98.

By becoming the public face of thousands of victims, she helped generate the momentum that led to the $.25 billion settlement of a class-action suit against the Swiss banks in 1998.

Stanley Cohen, a biochemist who shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in medicine for the discovery of chemicals that promote and help regulate the growth of cells — research that greatly advanced science’s understanding of cancer, dementia and other maladies — died Feb. 5 in Nashville. Dr. Cohen was a professor emeritus of biochemistry at Vanderbilt in Nashville. He was 97.

Peter Serkin, a pianist in a family dynasty of musicians, died Feb. 1 at his home in Red Hook NY, near the campus of Bard College, where he was on the faculty. He was 72.

Mr. Serkin was descended from storied musical lineages on both sides of his family. His father was the eminent pianist Rudolf Serkin; his maternal grandfather was the influential conductor and violinist Adolf Busch, whose musical forebears went back generations. He challenged his legacy and sought to claim his own by embracing contemporary music. Throughout his career he presented recital programs that juxtaposed the old and the new — 12-tone scores and Mozart sonatas, for instance.

Mr. Serkin enjoyed teaching and held posts at institutions including the Mannes School of Music and the Juilliard School in New York City, in addition to Bard College. During summer, he taught at the Tanglewood Music Institute.