Alan Bull obituary

My friend and colleague Alan Bull, who has died aged 87, was an internationally renowned microbiologist and pioneer of biotechnology, developing procedures that opened up new approaches to studying microbial ecology and pathogenicity. Such developments led to Alan chairing an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development working party on the potential of biotechnology for industrial sustainability (1996-98).

Collaboration was central to Alan's work. Together with Ian Swingland, a conservation biology professor at the University of Kent, where Alan spent most of his career, he was a founding trustee in 1989 of the Durrell Trust for Conservation Biology, and in 1992 launched a new journal, Biodiversity and Conservation, which is still going strong.