News A Special Symposium to celebrate Philip Cohen’s 21 years as Director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, 24–26 June 2012, University of Dundee Protein Phosphorylation in Signal Transduction and Disease Peter Shepherd (University of Auckland) Downloaded from http://portlandpress.com/biochemist/article-pdf/34/4/59/5271/bio034040059.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 The Dundee ‘microclimate’ that Sir Philip Cohen has promoted so well over the years with a special award by the Biochemical Journal to was remarkably in evidence as sun greeted more than 200 attendees who had gathered acknowledge the enormous impact of his publications from all over the world to acknowledge his achievements over the last 21 years in in the journal which in themselves have accumulated building the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit. more than 10 000 citations and as a body of work have The invitation-only meeting was organized by John Rouse and Dario Alessi, who an h-index of 37. is the new director of the unit, and the invitees featured a range of alumni of Philip’s The scientific proceedings concluded fittingly with a laboratory and the MRC unit as well as people he had collaborated with over the years. presentation from Philip himself who revealed the new The meeting opened with talks from Tim Hunt and Ed Fisher, Philip’s postdoctoral direction for his research now that he has stepped down supervisor in the 1960s. It was no surprise that the subsequent list of speakers comprised as head of the unit. In this presentation he described yet a veritable who’s who of cell signalling researchers whose talks provided an excellent to be published work which provides strong evidence balance of a new results interwoven with historical perspective. There were also talks that the SIK family of kinases play an important in from some of Philip’s collaborators in industry recounting the history of collaborations regulating innate immunity. This looks set to be yet in molecular screening and antibody production that have provided extremely valuable another major contribution to the field of cell signalling resources for not only academia, but also for the drug discovery industry. and who would doubt that Philip will continue to make Naturally, the meeting focused on the impact Philip’s work has made, and many such contributions in the future. In keeping with his h-index of 124 speaks for itself. Many speakers also commented on Philip’s Philip’s style, the meeting concluded with a dinner in contributions to the University of Dundee and Dundee itself and also to his the spectacular dining room of Glamis Castle, a fitting long-term support for European scientific institutions including the Biochemical end to a meeting to honour someone who never does Society, of which he is a past president. During the meeting, Philip was presented things in half measure. ■ Sir Philip Cohen with Professor Chris Marshall from the Institute of Cancer Research Sir Philip Cohen with Eddy Fischer (his postdoctoral London at Glamis Castle supervisor from Seattle) at Glamis Castle August 2012 © Biochemical Society 59.