Hubert Armand Sissons was chairman of the department of pathology at the Hospital for Joint Diseases and the Orthopedic Institute, New York. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, the son of Alfred Thomas Stanley Sissons, dean of the Victorian College of Pharmacy, Melbourne, and Jessie Taylor Sissons

John Turk was a former professor of pathology at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences at the College. He was born on 2 October 1930 in Farnborough, Hampshire, where his father was a solicitor. From Malvern, where he specialised in classics, John went up to Guy’s Hospital to read medicine, qualify