Alan Powell Goffe

Alan Powell Goffe (9 July 1920 – 13 August 1966) was a British pathologist whose research contributed to the development and improvement of vaccines, most notably the polio and measles vaccines. He was a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a member of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. At the time of his death, he was the head of the Department of Experimental Cytology at the Wellcome Research Laboratories.

Education Goffe was born in 1920 to a Jamaican father and an English mother, both of whom were practicing physicians. After attending Epsom College in Surrey, England, Goffe graduated in 1944 from University College Hospital with a medical degree. some of which was spent in Egypt, he turned his focus to intestinal pathogens such as typhoid.

Once his national service had been completed, Goffe returned to the Central Public Health Laboratory, where he studied the poliomyelitis virus and helped to introduce cutting-edge techniques developed by Enders in the US to the UK. He set up a tissue-culture laboratory, worked on preparing inactivated versions of the virus; and was a member of a Medical Research Council (United Kingdom) committee aiming to bring learning from the US to develop a vaccine in Britain. During his time at Wellcome, he made important contributions not only to poliomyelitis vaccines, but also led the development of an attenuated measles strain known as the "Beckenham" (also sometimes known as the "Goffe") strain. Goffe was involved in numerous clinical trials to test vaccines, publicly testing them on himself and his family to demonstrate his confidence in their safety.