Retirement Celebration

A Symposium was held in honor of the retirement of Howard Goldfine, Professor of Microbiology and past-president of ASEF. Following the Symposium, at a reception and dinner, friends, family and colleagues presented tributes and memories of his life and work.

The research of Howard Goldfine involves the interaction between bacterial pathogens and the mammalian host cell and is at the intersection of microbiology and cell biology. During his distinguished career in biochemistry and microbiology over the past half century, he has made important contributions to our understanding of bacterial fatty acid and phospholipid biosynthesis, the assembly of the outer membranes of bacteria, the regulation of biophysical properties of bacterial membranes, and the structures, biosynthesis and functions of bacterial ether lipids. In a second major phase of his research career his laboratory played a large role in elucidating the roles of phospholipases in bacterial pathogenesis with a focus on Listeria monocytogenes. His book Listeria Monocytogenes: Pathogenesis and Host Response, co-edited with Hao Shen, was published by Springer in 2007. In much of this work, he was fortunate to have his wife, Norah C. Johnston, Ph.D., as a colleague.