Foreword

We are pleased to introduce this special issue of Neurochemical Research that is dedicated to honoring the career of Professor Philip Mark Beart, who has enjoyed a sustained and successful career in neurochemistry since the early 1970’s. Phil’s research career was built on a strong academic pedigree, having completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Adelaide and his postgraduate training at the Australian National University in Canberra under the guidance of Professors Graham Johnston and David Curtis. After graduating with his Ph.D. in 1972, Phil took up a postdoctoral position in the MRC Unit for Neurochemical Pharmacology in Cambridge (UK) with Professor Leslie Iversen (1972–1974), followed by a second postdoctoral appointment in the Departments of Neuropathology and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School with Professor Richard Sidman (1975–1976). In 1977, Phil returned to Australia to establish his own laboratory in the University of Melbourne, Department of Medicine at the Austin Hospital.

Soon after, Phil was appointed as an NHMRC (Australia) Research Fellow, a position he has held for over 30 years, with subsequent promotion to the level of Senior Principal Research Fellow and senior academic research appointments at Monash University and The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. During this time he has been very active in a number of areas of neurochemical research, with a focus most recently on brain cell death and inflammation, especially in stroke and motor neuron disease (MND) and ALS. Phil has mentored numerous junior scientists throughout his long career, including many postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows, with many of them also going on to successful research careers. He has also spent time as a visiting researcher at multiple international laboratories, including positions in Paris, Cambridge, London, Bristol, Copenhagen and Montpellier. Consequently, over the years Phil has developed and maintained many fruitful collaborations—indeed a number of the contributors to this issue are his former or current collaborators and colleagues. Not surprisingly, across his sustained career, Phil has authored an enviable list of publications (>250) with a high number of citations (>8000), confirming that his research has made a lasting impact on the field.

In relation to his strong research output, Phil has enjoyed links with Pharma and has generated substantial intellectual property, resulting in ten patents. He has also made substantial, high level contributions to several professional societies and has been a member of multiple peer-review journal editorial boards, including the Journal of Neurochemistry. For example, Phil was President of the International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN, 2011–2013) and is currently the official historian of the society. In recognition of Phil’s high-level and sustained contributions he has been awarded a DSc by The University of Melbourne and numerous prizes and awards, including the Bethlehem Griffiths Medal (2010); the Lawrie Austin Lectureship (2009, Australasian Neuroscience Society Prize Lecture) and the Michael Rand Medal for pharmacology (2009, ASCEPT prize). When not involved in his many scientific endeavours, Phil actively pursues his interests in physical fitness, music and cinema.

This issue includes a range of interesting and diverse contributions, aptly reflecting Phil’s broad interests throughout his career, including topical reviews such as that on nitrosative stress in the nervous system by Tomohiro Nakamura and Stuart Lipton and notable original articles such as the report on the use of leptomeningeal and choroid plexus explant cultures to study human brain inflammation by Mike Dragunow and colleagues.

Finally, on behalf of all his colleagues in the neurochemistry community and the contributors to this special issue, we congratulate Phil on his excellent and substantial research achievements and his wonderful contribution to his beloved discipline of neurochemistry.

Andrew J. Lawrence and Andrew Gundlach

Guest Editors

andrew.lawrence@florey.edu.au or andrew.gundlach@florey.edu.au