Thomas G. Pickering: friend, colleague and scientist.

We, in common with many others, realized that with his passing, an era in hypertension research had also ended, and that it would be remiss of us and of ‘Blood Pressure Monitoring’ on which he served with us as a senior editor for so many years, if we did not pay tribute to his remarkable achievements. We acknowledge it as a tribute to the friendship and respect that Tom inspired across the world that so many of his colleagues have contributed to make this issue not only a fitting memorial to him but a starting point for future scientific endeavours. Tom was educated at Bryanston School in Blandford, England where he won state and entrance scholarships. He went on to study medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London where he graduated in 1966, being awarded the first Broderip Scholarship [2]. His early postgraduate years were spent at the Middlesex and the Radcliffe Infirmary. He sat the membership of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1968 (becoming a fellow in 1980) and went on to take a PhD degree at Oxford University in 1970. In 1972, he went to New York to take up appointments as Associate Physician at the Rockefeller University Hospital and Assistant Professor at Cornell University, and he spent 2 years as Assistant Professor at the Rockefeller University working with Neal Miller on biofeedback mechanisms. He was appointed Assistant Physician to the New York Hospital in 1974. He returned to the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1974 to work with Peter Sleight. His earliest hypertension research at Oxford focused on baroreceptor function, the autonomic nervous system, and the emerging class of cardiovascular medications, known as the adrenoreceptor blockers. Although he returned to Oxford from 1974 to 1976, the possibility of being able to work as both a practicing physician and a clinical investigator drew him back to New York City and Cornell University Medical College, where he spent more than 20 years in a productive career in behavioral cardiovascular medicine, clinical hypertension, and blood pressure measurement research.