Alan’s Postgraduates

​

Maureen Bowen (née Rees)         PhD    1967-69

Michael Stratford                       PhD    1970-74

Nan Morgan                             PhD

Abdul Chagla                            PhD    1974-78

A.C. Srivastava                          PhD     1970- 78?

Timothy Rubridge                        PhD    1974-78

Menelaos Costas                        PhD    1979-83

Clive Woffendin                         PhD    1979-83

Steven Edwards  (with DL)            PhD  1975-78

Geoffrey Gadd                           PhD  1975-78

Glyn Hobbs                                PhD   1982-86

Tracy Cooper

Helen Jenkins (née Smith)             PhD   1983-86

 

Alan Griffiths was one of our greatest assets as an extremely broadly educated biologist, with a quite different outlook from the other eight staff members with more specialised niches.

​

In School at Porth, he had learnt the subject for his five last years with Mr. Fred Weaver, himself an inspiring, devoted, and meticulous all-round expert over a wide and deep syllabus. Fortunate to have a guru who kept up with the latest developing aspects of the subject, Alan was exposed early on to the new discoveries of biochemistry, genetics, ecology, and evolutionary biology, as well as the traditionally-taught groundwork of plant and animal physiology and anatomy, and the classification of organisms. Chemistry, Physics and Maths were also all taught to a high standard, by staff many of whom would have become university academics in times more propitious and if their careers had not been disrupted during the war years.

​

Alan’s popularity with the staff and fellow pupils, became legendry with his greatest sporting achievement. His record performance in the Junior 100 yard sprint, he held for many years, and perhaps for all times, when the contest became a 100 metre event. When Alan stayed on for a third year in the 6th form he was the natural choice as Head Prefect. He played rugby, but in a school with a tarmac ‘field’ soccer was more realistic: in summer there would be perhaps a dozen cricket matches proceeding simultaneously against a steeply angled stone wall leading up to a grass incline following the contour of the valley hill.

​

In Aberystwyth, outstanding lecturing and practical expertise in Botany, Zoology, Parasitology and Cell Biology was provided by a roster of highly distinguished staff; Alan was always in awe of their talents, frequently praising the discovery of the first plant growth hormone by P. F. Wareing, the cytological insights of Bryn Jones, and one of the most distinguished parasitologists of that time, Gwendolen Rees.

 

Arrived in Cardiff and registered to do a PhD with the just-installed Prof. David Hughes (in the new Microbiology Department) as supervisor, Alan began working on a free-living amoeba. This he continued, alongside smaller projects, for his whole life, and showed the organism to be a wonderful model lower eukaryote. Alan became a world expert on the process of encystment, by which stressful conditions are tolerated so that survival of extreme temperature or desiccation of the amoeba is ensured.

​

In Volume 1 (supplement), Maureen Bowen has described in highly amusing terms the amazing events in that 3rd floor lab, conscientiously serviced by an obedient and zany 50-year old Professor, bent on keeping his first Cardiff research student well on track. Needless to say, Alan, Gwynfryn Jones, David Evans and Geoff Turner, made the most of setting up this pantomime as well as working flat-out. The diversions did none of their future careers harm, as the ‘Prof’ (he hated the term ‘Boss’) himself greatly enjoyed mischievous fun as Maureen has vividly made clear.

Among his several research interests the following proved highly productive:

Acanthamoeba (formerly Hartmanella) castellanii encystation (with Maureen Bowen, Mike Stratford (who later taught both Peter and Nick McClure biology for O- and A-level in their Plymouth school:  see Vol.1, p.119 and p.207, and inspired them - but quite independently - to study Microbiology at Cardiff, where Pete writes, 'I soon came to realise that I had made a good decision') and Abdul Chagla (from Pakistan, the first of our overseas students), a novel method for setting up synchronous cultures of eukaryotic single celled organisms (including A. castellanii, again with Abdul Chagla, and Dictyostelium discoideum with Clive Woffendin; and studies of the cytochromes of both these organisms (with Steve Edwards).

​

With A. C. Srivastava a consultant gynecologist from the UG unit in Cardiff Infirmary: Alan was enlisted by DEH (somewhat reluctantly, as this fellow came with plates rattling around in a suit case) to identify Candida spp. and related species from patients! This work led to a landmark paper in 1985, and a MD for the physician.

​

For Alan, this early introduction to the subject of yeast taxonomy led to an influential publication on a numerical method of yeast identification based on simple growth tests and widely used in undergraduate classes, although not with such exciting human pathogens!

​

Alan’s interests later extended to molecular methods (DNA analyses) of amoeba isolates with Menelaus (Rico) Costas, whose next move was to the National Type Culture Collection (NTCC ,Collingdale).

​

One of Alan’s scientific publications from 1980 is with Bob Lovitt on classification of bacterial isolates from oil-storage tanks using numerical profiles.

​

Alan’s interest in microorganisms and heavy metal toxicity arose from his field trip studies of lead componds in leachate from the mines and Quarries of mid-Wales with undergraduate classes. At the time of writing his 1977 review with Geoff Gadd has received more than 700 citations.

​

With Tim Rubidge (Vol 1, p.107), and Glyn Hobbs (Vol 1, p. 147), both financed by the MOD, Alan studied the growth of Cladosporium resinae in aviation fuel [Cladosporium resinae is still called 'clad', an ubiquitous pest in the aviation fuel world: systematic name now is Hormoconis resinae (Lindau)].

​

With Helen Jenkins (vol 1, p. 145) two genotypes of Chlamydomonas were found to show both circadian rhythms and ultradian rhythms (with periods of ~24h and 55 min respectively). Both long and short period showed temperature compensation, indicating  timkeeping functions.

 

Other contributors to our earlier volumes have shown their appreciation of Alan’s deep understanding of biology, and his insights that helped them on their way to finding ways of setting up well controlled experiments, thereby often solving their problems. Many of Alan’s Honours students and postgrads have excelled in many spheres of activity. They had all shared with him the experiences of the field courses held annually in summer in the countryside around Aberystwyth at Trawscoed, and Llanbadarn Fawr, as highlighted in Shôn Wyn Hughes’s essay, Vol 1. p.105. Other expeditions included surveys of the organisms living in lead polluted streams in the surrounding valleys. Alan also seldom missed the Gregynog meetings instigated by ‘Prof’ together with the newly appointed Gareth Morris as Head of Microbiology in Aberystwyth in 1972.*

​

Alan combined all this with considerable teaching duties in all three years and the usual tutorials of four or fewer students per group, and a fair allocation of administration.

 

When Alan Griffiths decided to undergo the disruption of the immanent changes threatened by merger of UCC with the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST, across Bute Park), his retirement presaged one of our greatest losses. He clearly and precisely foresaw the end of our halcyon days (as described vividly by most contributors earlier in volumes 1 and 2 of our ‘Green Book’).

At one of our Staff meetings (all 10 of us), Alan unveiled a Students Handbook for the proposed amalgamated New Department (Applied Biology, Zoology, Plant Sciences, plus Microbiology). This he had assembled using a montage of cuttings from homely magazines (e.g., Cosmopolitan, Mayfair, Men Only). He also proposed alternative titles for our merged department: ‘Department of …’Health and Beauty’, or ‘Leisured Pursuits’.

​

After a one-year PDCE, in the Education Department at Cardiff Univesity, Alan commenced on a career of Primary School Teaching back in the Rhondda. Thus as well as the demise of a (vigorously) autonomous and freethinking Department, we lost a great contributor to the quality of our teaching and lives.

​

Alan and Carol’s son Hugh is an Honours graduate of Biosciences and has a PhD from Cardiff Metropolitan University, obtained by working on bacterial biofilms in cold water dispensing systems with Prof. Adrian Peters, one of Julian Wimpenny’s  PhDs.

​

*see Aberystwyth University for link to many of the joint Cardiff-Microbiology  Gregynog programs.

​

David Lloyd, 2019

​