University of Glasgow Meeting, 7-9 April 1999

Themed Meeting, centred around: "Complex Protein Assemblies as Molecular Machines"

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Meeting Programme

Regulation in Metabolism Group/ Membrane Group colloquium:
Phospholipids: regulators of membrane traffic and signalling

Phil Godfrey Memorial Lecture

The April 1999 meeting of the Biochemical Society in Glasgow will host a new plenary lecture in the field of cell signalling in memory of Phil Godfrey. These lectures will allow an exceptional investigator to present results of broad significance to the current understanding of cell signalling. We feel that this is the sort of lecture Phil himself would have most appreciated. One of my strongest memories of Phil, as both a mentor and a friend, is of his ability to convey a sense of the excitement and enjoyment that doing research could bring and we hope these lectures will bring that same sense to many more investigators, young or old.

Phil started as an undergraduate at Birmingham University and stayed to carry out a PhD in a lab shared between Brian Finean, Roger Coleman and Bob Michell. Though his initial work was on liver function and bile production, he was soon caught up in the excitement that surrounded that lab as inositol phospholipids and phosphates emerged as key mediators in calcium signalling. As a result of this he did his first post-doc with Jim Putney in North Carolina helping to identify InsP3 as a mediator of Ca2+ release in hepatocytes. It was here, too, that Phil met and married Jana with whom he returned to Britain to work in the Radcliffe Infirmary.. It was in Oxford that many students, including myself, discovered that Phil's enthusiasm for science was as infectious as his sense of humour. Phil contributed his expertise in analysis of inositol phosphates and phospholipids to many aspects of study, from depressive illness to platelet function. Phil's writing extended beyond the scientific, for as an avid cinema fan, who with Phill Hawkins ran a 'worst movie ever' film club, he was also responsible for a significant number of film reviews. It was also in Oxford that, with Steve Watson, he organized a Phosphoinositide Signalling Meeting that many in the audience at Glasgow may remember. In January of 1990 Phil, Jana and their daughter Natasha moved to Geneva to work in the Glaxo Institute of Molecular Biology where he became a close friend of Steve Arkinstall and his family. Here despite increasing ill health Phil continued to participate in both an active scientific and social life even taking a balloon flight in the alps. His death in 1991 removed a young, original and dedicated scientist who demonstrated that you can succeed in the pursuit of biochemistry whilst maintaining a sense of wonder and of fun.

The establishment of this memorial lecture has taken some time but we are thankful to the Glaxo Institute of Molecular Biology, Geneva for the original donation which made this possible and to the Company of Biologists in Cambridge who have generously taken on the management of the memorial fund.

Philip Peter Godfrey 1957-1991

Trevor Jackson

Laboratory of Molecular Signalling

Department of Zoology

University of Cambridge

Cambridge CB2 3ES