Alan Powell Goffe

In 1955 Goffe moved to the Wellcome Research Laboratories in Kent, where he worked as the Chief Medical Virologist. During his time at Wellcome he made important contributions not only to poliomyelitis vaccines, but also led on 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. His interest in how some viruses could cause tumours led him to study the SV40 virus and the human wart virus, human papillomavirus.

Goffe and his wife Elisabeth, who was a teacher, married in 1943 and had five children. Their son Hugh died from bone cancer aged 15, after which they set up the Hugh Goffe Foundation in his memory. At the age of 46 Goffe was drowned in an accident whilst sailing near the Isle of Wight.

Alan Powell Goffe (1920-1966) 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.

Goffe was born in 1920 to a black Jamaican father and a white English mother, who were both practising physicians. After attending Epsom College in Surrey, England, Goffe graduated in 1944 from University College Hospital with a medical degree. Goffe then specialised in pathology, first as a Pathological Assistant at the London Hospital and then at the Central Public Health Laboratory, taking some time out from the latter to complete a Diploma in Bacteriology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.