The news is sad that Eric Barnard passed away recently. He was a leading biological scientist and in his later years a very important contributor in the field of purinergic signalling. Eric and I were PhD students together in the Department of Zoology, King’s College London in the 1950s. He was already a committed scientist, working on cell membrane biology under the supervision of the head of the department, Jim Danielli. Eric was always rather mysterious about his private life. After completing our PhDs, we parted ways. Eric went to North America, while I went to Australia. We both returned to the UK in the mid-1970s, Eric to the Department of Pharmacology, The University of Cambridge. He was known for his outstanding work cloning the receptors for both acetylcholine and GABA. Eric was instrumental in helping me achieve the next logical step in the development of purinergic signalling. His group achieved this by cloning the first ATP receptor, which was the P2Y1 G protein-coupled receptor. We published this in 1993. Since that time Eric has made many important contributions to P1, P2X and P2Y receptor biology.

At the personal level, Eric was a kind and helpful man and he was meticulous in an in depth approach to science. He much enjoyed participating in International Meetings, contributing insightfully to discussions. He will be much missed.