LAUSR

According to the obituary in the London Times [1], “Alan Howard was born in Norwich, England in 1929 to Leonard Howard, who worked in a mill, and Elsie (née Atkins), who was a tailor. After his father lost a finger in an accident at the mill, he used the compensation money to build up a tailoring business with his wife. After World War II they opened the Victory Café in Norwich. Alan was educated at City of Norwich grammar school where he played chess for the Norfolk and Norwich Club. At age 17, in 1946, he won the newly created Junior Championship Cup. He was also a keen photographer with his own darkroom. Howard won a place at Downing College in Cambridge, England in 1948 where he studied Natural Sciences. He was elected to the Arthur Paul Saint Scholarship at Downing College in July 1952, a scholarship he held for 2 years. Dr. Howard’s PhD was approved on 30 Nov 1954 for research on ‘the reaction of diazonium compounds with amino acids and proteins and its application to serological problems’. He received both his MA and PhD on 22 Jan 1955. Dr. Howard’s academic career was spent entirely at Cambridge University in England where he worked in various departments, including the Medical Research Council Unit of Nutrition (also known as “the Dunn”), the Department of Pathology and the Department of Medicine. One theme in Dr. Howard’s career was the study of atherosclerosis where he served as one of the organizers and editors of the proceedings from the 1st International Symposium on Atherosclerosis held in Athens in 1966. Thus, began his involvement with organizing and publishing International Symposia. The next international symposium that Alan organized and published was the 1st International Congress on Obesity [2] held under his chairmanship in London in 1974. This was followed 6 years later by the first of four International Symposia in Clinical Nutrition which was held in London in 1980, and whose proceedings he edited [3].