AN IRISHMAN IN PARIS

The sad news has been the sudden loss of Larry Cohen just a few days previously.  We at Cairn had got to know him very well over the years, both from his academic work and his founding of the Redshirt Imaging company, whose products we have been pleased to distribute.  Larry had been seen in both Plymouth and Paris from time to time, although his Plymouth appearances had been in support of the “other” Plymouth course, namely the imaging/microscopy one, but sadly that course is now definitely over.  I’d already known him for many years before that, our paths having first converged during my postdoc at Boston University in the late 1970’s, and which I’ve already written about here

For those readers who may not already know, Larry’s research interest was in optical indicators of membrane potential, which amongst much other work included his personal testing of literally thousands of candidate molecules on the squid giant axon.  He had begun his research career working with Richard Keynes in Cambridge, which included working on that very same preparation, so in the scientific sense he also had a close connection with Hodgkin, Huxley and the other “giant axon” physiologists of that era.  Many of those people had significant interfamily connections, so in his talks Larry would sometimes like to show this in a “family tree” which would include other leading British scientists such as the Darwin family (to whom Keynes was related).   He would then contrast this by showing another slide to show his own scientific lineage, which consisted of …. just Larry Cohen!

The point is that those connections could inspire a certain amount of awe amongst the younger and less affiliated members of the scientific community, and although I couldn’t speak personally about anyone in that group, then at least some people of that generation did certainly act as if they were on a rather higher plane than the rest of us.  As what I recall in retrospect to be a particularly amusing example, my thoughts about Larry in this connection prompted me to remember a particular “nonencounter” in my student days with someone who had made his name in another field, namely insect physiology.  The person in question was Professor Sir Vincent Wigglesworth FRS, and one day there was a meeting for which my attendance was for some reason required, as my PhD research project at the Department of Zoology in Cambridge involved one aspect of this particular subject.  The poor man could bring himself to referring to me only indirectly, by asking “So this is the student?”, as if it were embarrassing for him even to be in the same room as me – which perhaps it was!

In contrast, Larry had no time for such pretentious nonsense, so for someone of my particular scientific upbringing it was somewhat disconcerting to be treated as an equal from the start.  But one nevertheless had to be careful!  His laid-back manner hid a particularly deep intellect, in which an apparently casual question from him would get right to the heart of whatever matter was being discussed.  And in social company, he was a pretty inexhaustible reservoir of jokes, not all of which would be suitable for retelling here!  Sir Vincent would most definitely NOT have been amused by them, but that would equally definitely have been his problem rather than mine.