Recollections of James Neel

In his long and influential career Neel contributed to almost all aspects of genetic epidemiology from mutation to ethical and philosophical issues. His research spanned North America, Japan, Africa, and Latin America in a fascinating equipoise among clinical, biochemical, epidemiological, and molecular studies that have stimulated hundreds of researchers who enjoyed the controversies he generated as much as the insights he provided. Without exception, we treasure recollections of a high-principled and warm-hearted colleague whose field studies were a model for their generation.     

Recollections of Pre-Prebiotic Leslie Orgel

Leslie Orgel's pre-prebiotic career is adumbrated.     

Recollections of a reluctant anthropologist

In this issue designed to mark his own eightieth year, the author recalls some of the biological, neurological and anthropological events experienced prior to, during and after graduation and overseas service during the First World War. These concentrated his attention upon cranial morphology and its potential illumination by a neurological approach. This was initiated in 1915 with J. T. Wilson in Sydney and deepened with Sir Grafton Elliot Smith at University College, London, and by 1920–1921 in America, as one of the two initial foreign fellows of the Rockefeller Foundation. But Joseph L. Shellshear's anatomical professorship in Hongkong (1921) precluded further collaboration, and a maximal postponement of neurological heterodoxies followed his own going to Johannesburg in 1922.Despite the Taung, Sterkfontein and Makapansgat discoveries (1925–1958) and the exposure of the Piltdown hoax (1953), it was not until similar entities had been unearthed from 1959 onwards in the Olduvai Gorge and, still more recently along the Omo River and Lake Rudolf, nor until the physicists, by introducing isotope dating, had transformed speculation about time into reality by means of isotopic dating, that the relative antiquity of the australopithecine phase through which the human stock had passed in Africa became undeniable. Meanwhile the enrichment in humanity's understanding of itself through this half-century and the Primate studies that the foregoing events and concurrent space programmes have inspired, reveal the advantages to humanity as a whole of the information that has been gained both directly and indirectly, and the potential importance of phylogeny for future human persistence as a rational species.     

Recollections of Thomas John Wydrzynski

In appreciation of his contribution to the Photosystsem II research and commemoration of the book Photosystem II: The Light-Driven Water-Plastoquinone Oxido-Reductase, co-edited with Kimiyuki Satoh, I present here some of my recollections of Thomas John Wydrzynski and by several others with whom he has associated over the years at Urbana (Illinois), Berkeley (California), Standard Oil Company-Indiana (Illinois), Berlin (Germany), Gothenburg (Sweden), and Canberra (Australia). We not only recognize him for his unique career path in Photosystem II research, but also for his qualities as a collaborative scientist working on the only system on Earth that has the ability to oxidize water to molecular oxygen using the energy of sunlight.     

Recollections of An Unrepentent Researcher-Bill's Soliloquy

Neurochemical Research -     

Recollections of my friendship with Klaus Ruckpaul

Klaus Ruckpaul was the leader of cytochrome P450 research in the "East" Germany when the world was politically divided into "East" and "West". Under strong political pressure during the "Cold War", the communication between the scientists in the "East" countries with those in the "West" countries was badly restricted. He wanted to improve the situation, and organized an international gathering of the biochemists studying cytochrome P450. The first meeting was held in 1976, and it developed later into a big international conference named "International Conference on Cytochrome P450, Biochemistry and Biophysics". He and his colleagues also contributed greatly to the elucidation of the mechanism of P450-catalyzed reactions. I respect him for his great contribution to the advancement of biochemical study on cytochrome P450, and feel happy that I have enjoyed a long friendship with him.