Fifty years my mentor: Harold Atwood

Abstract

While readers of Journal of Neurogenetics may be familiar with Harold Atwood’s work with Drosophila, most may know little of his previous work on crustacean neuromuscular systems that prepared him to utilise Drosophila neuromuscular junctions. Here, I will give brief overviews of his academic career, one line of his research that persisted throughout his career and his entry to the Drosophila field. This is not a review paper. Finally, I will relate my experiences with Atwood since 1967 as an undergraduate, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Faculty member and finish with some personal anecdotal observations.

Keywords:

• Synapse
• transmission
• presynaptic differentiation
• contraction
• crustacea

Acknowledgements

Thanks to C. Charlton, Dr. J. M. Wojtowicz and Dr. J. Mercier and Dr. J. Dason for commenting on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.