It is difficult to believe that Richard will not be around. He was the most original thinker in our world, and it was more fun discussing research with him than with anyone else. Richard first “appeared” in Virginia while he was working with Jeremy Cogswell on the Poole Cohort in 1989. In that study he provided the evaluation of the children at age 10 and brought with him techniques that had been developed in Sydney and in Southampton. The result was a paper that has had a major impact.

Following his fellowship, he spent several years working with us in Charlottesville. During that time, he designed and organized a series of studies on middle school children which played a major part in our thinking over then next ten years. His favorite study was carried out in Los Alamos and he persuaded the journal to allow the title to have an addendum “Tickling the dragon’s breath”. This was an allusion to Richard Feynman’s “Tickling the Dragon’s Tail” from an experiment in the same town 50 years earlier. Looking for old pictures, we found a whole series of other people enjoying themselves doing studies designed by Richard!

The impact of his thinking can best be appreciated from the editorial on causality in 1992. At that time, Richard became a real authority on causality and he was the first to bring Bradford Hill’s criteria for causality to bear on the problem of asthma in children. I believe his thinking at that time allowed us all to move forward. This included extending dose response data to multiple allergens which in turn lead through to understanding tolerance to domestic animals.

Looking back, having Richard work with us at that time was an honor. I was sorry when he decided to go to Australia. However, he had started to make connections with the groups in Sydney and Melbourne and clearly enjoyed the sense of Wild West down there. We also remember very fondly when Jude and Richard came to Charlottesville as newly weds, reminds me of my own honeymoon visiting strip malls in West Virginia.

Richard Sporik provided a special intellectual spark and an infectious enthusiasm that was totally his own. He was an exceptionally generous colleague and collaborator. He will be missed in many ways, but mostly as a friend.

Thomas Platts Mills - Professor of Immunolgy at University of Virginia, Charlottsville.