Edward Downes Edward Downes Sir Edward Thomas ("Ted") Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera. He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra. Within the field of opera, he was particularly known as a conductor of Verdi. He and his wife, Lady (Joan) Downes, committed assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland on 10 July 2009, an event that received significant media
Peter Downes Peter Downes Sir Charles Peter Downes (born 15 October 1953) is a British biochemist and the current Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dundee. He is the former Head of the College of Life Sciences and co-founder of the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT) alongside Sir Phillip Cohen. Having contributed to research in the pharmaceutical industry for eleven years prior to joining Dundee, he is one of the top 15 most cited bio-scientists in the UK. As a pioneering biochemist, Downes was instrumental in establishing the biological importance of the inositol glycerophospholipids and their metabolites. Among his other