The history of the Purine Club: a tribute to Prof. Geoffrey Burnstock

Abstract

The international purinergic scientific community has lost its pioneer. Geoffrey Burnstock, born on the 10th of May 1929 in London, died on the 2nd of June 2020, aged 91, in Melbourne (Australia). Geoff was one of the most highly regarded scientists of his generation. In the 1960s and 1970s, he developed a radical and somehow heretical new theory and opened an entire new field of science, signalling via extracellular nucleotides (the “purinergic theory”), which revolutionized our understanding of how cells communicate between each other. Initially, his unconventional theory found a lot of resistance in the scientific community. Once, one scientist even threatened to devote his entire life to disproving Burnstock’s theory. Undeterred, Geoff went further on, and continued to accumulate evidence in favour of his hypothesis, and led the field ever since. He struggled to attract new scientists to this new field of research and, in the early 1990s, due to new molecular biology techniques making it possible to isolate and identify cell surface receptors for ATP and its breakdown product adenosine, did evidence emerge that eventually convinced the doubters. The number of spontaneous obituaries and messages honouring Geoff’s memory that have appeared on specialized Journals and in the public press throughout the world since last June indicates that many people are clearly affected by his death. Besides being a rigorous, ethical and extremely brilliant scientist, Geoff was an extraordinary human being, always eager to collaborate and share data, never jealous of his findings and capable of learning things even from young people. He was known for his enthusiasm, empathy and ability to motivate young scientists and promote their careers. After the establishment of the Purine Club back in the 1990s, numerous Purine Club Chapters have been formed around the world with Geoff’s help and encouragement. He has obviously also been the inspirator and founder of our Journal, Purinergic Signalling (PUSI). For this reason, Charles Kennedy, the current Editor of the Journal, and myself thought that it might be nice to invite representatives from all known Purine Clubs to send a few notes to be published in PUSI on the history of their club and how Geoff inspired, aided or supported them. Here, I have collected all their contributions and I share with the entire purinergic community my personal memories on how the Purine Club was born and developed thanks to the invaluable mentoring of Geoffrey Burnstock. I apologize in advance if I am missing some information or forgot to mention somebody, and I strongly encourage all readers to submit memories and additional information that I shall gather for future writing. Keeping alive the history of how the field developed will be the best tribute that we can play to celebrate Geoff’s work along the years.