Abstract
The pain community was deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Howard Fields and as one of his students for 7 years, I was particularly impacted personally by the tremendous loss. Howard and I first met at a Neuroscience meeting in 1991, 2 years before my PhD graduation, where he enthusiastically invited me for a postdoctoral scholarship in his lab at UCSF. During the early stage of my career at UCSF, Howard played a critical and decisive role in my career development and research directions then and today. While in his lab, I was totally fascinated by his forward-thinking ideas not only in science but also in life. Under his guidance, I was allowed total freedom in choosing research topics emerged from our active and constant discussions. What brought Howard and me together was our common research interest on the brainstem area of rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) where Howard made the ground-breaking discovery on the function of RVM cells in descending pain inhibition published in 1983. 1 The milestone of the works Howard and I completed together was a study demonstrating the cellular mechanisms underlying opioid analgesia in descending pain modulation published in 1997. 2 One of the pioneer concept Howard taught me in pain research was that we needed to go beyond measuring pain in animals and think about human pain conditions and relief, the ultimate goal of pain research. That was more than 30 years ago and has become the golden standards in current pain research, and that is still the most important guidance in my research today of pain and emotion (Figure 1).
Drs. Fields and Pan at the IASP Research Symposium in Shanghai, 2011.
Howard was such a cheerful and friendly individual pleasant to go with on all occasions. My memory is filled with his characteristic smiles and laud laughter. He was always a delightful leader in the lab and in his house backyard as well. Another important thing I learned from Howard was how to taste and enjoy wines with our rolling tongue and taste-specific taste buds on different parts of the tongue. I truly miss the numerous afternoons when we chat, laugh and manage BBQ together with a glass of Napa Valley wine under the California sun.
I will miss Howard for life.
