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Many people have already paid tribute to Alan in this
group and I feel I must also add a few words.

When I first got to know Alan he was working on malaria
at the QIMR in Brisbane.  Those were the early days of
the confocal list and we were both frequent contributors.
One time he contacted me asking for advice on how to
produce grey-scale phase images with fluorescence
superimposed in green from his Bio-Rad MRC 600. (Novel
then, although everyone does it now).  I wrote him a
draft macro to produce the required 3 colour channels.
Typically, once he'd grasped the principle he wrote a much
improved version and sent me several images he'd produced,
with full permission to use them in my lectures (which I
gladly did).

Alan left Brisbane for a job in Melbourne, and his family
(the boys then very young) visited us in Balmain on the way.
Sadly the Melbourne job did not turn out well and Alan found
himself being asked to some things which he felt were
scientifically questionable.  A man of lesser principle might
have said "Well, I'm just an employee" but of course not Alan,
so he had no choice but to resign.  There was a possibility
of a job in Perth, but he didn't want to subject his family
to a further upheaval and instead took the bold step of starting
his own training and consultancy business, Biocon.

His training manual for Biocon's courses eventually evolved into
a full-blown book, and, typically, when he got the feeling that
his publishers were not paying enough attention to layout he
decided to send it to them in camera-ready form, thereby doubling
his workload but ensuring he got the result he wanted.  The book
was published last year, so at least Alan was able to see the
success of his labours, and indeed see it go into a second printing.

Our thoughts, and I'm sure the thoughts of all who knew him, are
with his widow Kirstin and two sons Ben and Cameron at this time.

						Guy

______________________________________________
Associate Professor Guy Cox, MA, DPhil(Oxon)
Electron Microscope Unit, Madsen Building F09,
University of Sydney, NSW 2006
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Phone +61 2 9351 3176     Fax +61 2 9351 7682
Mobile 0413 281 861
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http://www.guycox.net