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I arrived in Sheffield in autumn, 1954 as a first–year student in the Dept of Biochemistry. My record as an undergraduate was not particularly outstanding but I managed to escape with Honours. In my last year I was thinking about my future. Being interested in enzymology, and recognizing the lack of such research at Sheffield, I had approached several eminent American scientists about pursuing a degree with them. The response was moderately successful with 2 of 3 respondents accepting me. With this data I sought Gregorio’s advice.

 

Now Gregorio had been a student of Malcolm Dixon, the eminent enzymologist, and the person who persuaded Gregorio to pursue the fluorescence of flavins and flavoproteins. About that time an Australian, Vincent Massey, had also become a graduate student of Dixon, and Gregorio was thus familiar with Massey’s abilities.

 

Gregorio's advice (paraphrased) was as follows: “You know, we have recruited an exceptionally ably enzymologist to join the Department this fall, and I think that you would be much better served learning the trade with that person than with the American style of graduate training.”

 

Happily I followed that advice for the individual in question was Vincent Massey. Following my Ph.D. with Vince I was given an appointment as Assistant Lecturer in the department. During that period Vince invited Helmut Beinert to give a seminar. Helmut presented his latest results using electron paramagnetic resonance (epr) as a tool to detect and identify paramagnetic species in enzyme catalysed reactions. Vince saw that epr was to become an important research weapon and urged me to join Helmut’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow-I never found out whether Vince had persuaded Helmut that I could be useful- but in 1961 I left Sheffield for Madison, Wisconsin. Three years later I was recruited to the University of Michigan to the recently formed Biophysics Research Division, thus rejoining Vince who was now a professor in the Dept of Biological Chemistry. There we collaborated for 10 years before I succumbed to an offer from Rice University and left the cold and dry north for the hot and humid south.

 

None of this would have happened without Gregorio’s sage advice.