David Stansfield returns to the School of Life Sciences

David is now 90 years old and living in a care home in Broughty Ferry with his wife Betty. David had expressed a wish to pay a visit to Life Sciences to see how it had changed since he left. Accompanied by his son Huw and Carer Carol, David spent an hour in the Garland Cafeteria with Grahame Hardie, Carol MacKintosh and Philip Cohen reminiscing about the “old days” in Biochemistry.

Grahame Hardie joined David Stansfield’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher when he first moved to Dundee in 1976 and spent 15 months there working on ribosomal protein phosphorylation before working with Philip on the project that later led Grahame to discover the AMP-activated protein kinase. Grahame was one of two members of David Stansfield’s team to subsequently be elected a Fellow of The Royal Society. The other was Nick Lydon who received his PhD under David Stansfield’s supervision in 1982. Nick later went on to develop imatinib (marketed under the name Gleevec) at Ciba Geigy (now Novartis). Imatinib, the first protein kinase inhibitor to be approved for clinical use, turned the previously fatal leukaemia CML into an easily managed condition and led Nick Lydon to receive many prestigious international awards, including the Lasker Prize.

Asked about his time in David Stansfield’s lab, Grahame Hardie said “I have much to thank David for. My appointment as a Postdoc in his lab in 1976 brought me to Dundee, and the realization that it was an exciting place to do research in Life Sciences, which is why I've been here ever since. A few weeks after joining his lab, I also met Lyn, to whom I have now been married for 48 years!

Philip Cohen, a colleague of David in the Biochemistry Department from 1971 to 2000, said “I remember how kind Betty and David Stansfield were to Tricia and I when we first arrived in Dundee in October 1971. One of the stand-out memories of our first three months in Dundee was spending New Year’s Eve 1971 with Betty and David at their home in the Claverhouse district of Dundee.” 

Although the Stansfield family still own the Claverhouse home, they did not spend very long living there because David became the Warden of the Belmont Undergraduate Hall of residence and he, Betty and their family moved to live on the University Campus in the house reserved for Wardens of Belmont Hall, where they stayed until David’s retirement in 2000.

Speaking on behalf of the family, David’s son Huw said “We were thrilled to revisit Biochemistry and see how it had developed into the School of Life Sciences after Dad’s retirement. David thoroughly enjoyed his visit, and it rekindled many happy memories for him.”