LAUSR

Professor Lawrie Powell passed away peacefully on September 23, 2022, aged 87. While best known internationally as THE world authority on the iron-storage disorder, hemochromatosis, and in Australia as the Father of Australian Hepatology, Lawrie Powell’s seminal contributions to Gastroenterology and Hepatology internationally include formation of the Asia-Pacific Association for Study of the Liver (APASL)—he was its first President in 1978—and launching of the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (JGH) as a founding editor in 1986. Lawrie William Powell (affectionately known as LWP) was born in Sydney in 1934, but his family moved to Brisbane where he attended the Brisbane State High School and graduated in Medicine in 1958. He lived there—albeit with important periods of study abroad—the rest of his life. During his residency at the Royal Brisbane Hospital under the guidance of Professor John Tyrer, Lawrie became interested in the iron loading disease hereditary hemochromatosis when he was caring for several young women with the condition. In the 1960s, it was controversial as to whether hemochromatosis was secondary to alcoholic liver disease or a primary genetic disorder. By his careful clinical and family studies, Lawrie demonstrated that hemochromatosis clearly differed from alcoholic cirrhosis, characterized its recessive pattern of inheritance (later confirmed with genetic marker studies), as well as its high prevalence in Caucasian populations. His interest in hemochromatosis was sustained for the next 60 years! Lawrie went on to become the world’s foremost authority on this disease. After 2 years (1965/1966) at London’s Royal Free Hospital under the guidance of Professor (later Dame) Sheila Sherlock, he returned to take up a senior lectureship within the University of Queensland and became a consultant at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. The legendary Sheila Sherlock was a key mentor; much of LWP’s own mentoring success he attributed to the Royal Free days. His devotion to the emerging specialty of Hepatology became firmly established then. He teamed successfully with biochemist Professor Barbara Billing in studies of Gilbert’s syndrome —the results comprised the first of many Powell publications in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Around the time Lawrie retuned to Brisbane, June Halliday, another talented biochemist, was also appointed. The highly productive research partnership that Lawrie and June established was to last almost 30 years. Their program on iron metabolism and hemochromatosis produced many key findings published in NEJM, The Lancet, Hepatology and elsewhere. Among others, these discoveries included the role of serum ferritin in diagnosis, characterization of the hepatic iron index, determination of the penetrance of the hemochromatosis gene in men and women, and the value of “de-ironing” therapy in preventing complications of cirrhosis and liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma). Eventually, his team advanced understanding of the basic disease mechanisms, including the disordered regulation of bodily iron metabolism and the specific role of the hemochromatosis gene product (HFE) in modulating hepcidin activity. Around 1980, Harold Conn dubbed Powell as “Mr. Iron,” a mantel he enjoyed and that befitted him well! However, Lawrie’s prodigious contributions toward understanding and management of this common disease are only one facet of the man as scientist and clinician. Above all else, Lawrie Powell was an academic and medical leader. By the 1970s, Hepatology was a burgeoning new speciality, with major international liver societies including the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Association for Study of the Liver (IASL) and its European “chapter,” EASL. Sheila Sherlock had been instrumental in the formation of the latter two bodies, and likely mentioned to Lawrie Powell and Professor Kunio Okuda, another Founding Father of Asian Hepatology, the possibility of forming an Asia-Pacific liver society affiliated with IASL. This they did, and at a meeting in Singapore in 1978, APASL came into being. Lawrie Powell was its inaugural President. He remained vitally interested in and highly supportive of APASL, as well as Asia-Pacific gastroenterology more generally, throughout his career. In 1981, IASL was held in conjunction with APASL in Hong Kong—signaling a new focus on our region as one contributing importantly to Hepatology. However, the region still lacked a specialty journal in the field that encompassed more than a national focus. To meet this need, the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (JGH) was launched in 1986. Lawrie Powell was one of four inaugural JGH editors (with Kunio Okuda, SK Lam, doi:10.1111/jgh.16031