J. MURDOCH MITCHISON Fantes, Peter; Mitchison, Sally
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
John Murdoch Mitchison, known as Murdoch, was elected FRS in recognition of his work on the cell cycle. This emerged from a lifelong interest in the natural sciences, interrupted by war-time work in ...Operational Research which developed his critical appraisal of research technique. Post-war, he completed a PhD at Cambridge, then worked with Sir Michael Swann FRS (1962) on mitotic membrane changes in sea urchins. In 1953 Murdoch joined the University of Edinburgh Zoology Department and in time switched his interest to the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Over the next 30 years he investigated cell growth and division, employing a meticulous approach to experiments. He considered there to be a ‘growth cycle’ in cells, independent of the DNA-division cycle. There is experimental evidence to support this idea, but further investigations of it have been limited.
Actively fostering a relaxed but industrious and enquiring ethos in the lab, Murdoch ran the department jointly with Aubrey Manning. The Mitchison group’s work at Edinburgh attracted students including Paul Nurse (later Sir Paul Nurse; FRS 1989, PRS 2010–2015), Béla Novak, Kim Nasmyth (FRS 1989) and Peter Fantes as well as many visiting academics. Murdoch’s work on S. pombe came to both national and international recognition, forming a foundation for the current thriving community of researchers in cell physiology, cell genetics and molecular biology.
Murdoch is remembered for his single-minded commitment to cell biology research and his generous, fair-minded support of younger colleagues and students. He was, additionally, an expert landscape gardener, a convivial host and phenomenally well-informed on most subjects.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
SIR PATRICK ALFRED CALDWELL-MOORE May, Alex; Longair, Malcolm
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Patrick Moore was the archetype of the English eccentric, bringing a passionate enthusiasm for astronomy to the general public, principally through his long-running television series The Sky at ...Night. He was an inspired amateur who made no pretence at being a professional, but who had the extraordinary ability to communicate in simple, articulate and direct language the significance of advances in astronomy and astrophysics to the general public. He inspired generations of young people to take an interest in astronomy, and in science in general. This passion was combined with a love of everything English, especially cricket, and political views which might be mildly described as extreme right-wing.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
SIR JOHN EDWARD SULSTON CH Waterston, Robert H.; Ferry, Georgina
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In 2002 Sir John Sulston shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his contribution to understanding the genetic control of cell fate during the development of the roundworm ...Caenorhabditis elegans. However, it was his position as one of the leaders of the international and publicly funded Human Genome Project that brought him to public prominence. Both his work on the worm cell lineage and his later commitment to genome sequencing as founding director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute stemmed from his conviction that investing in large-scale data collection would have long-term benefits for future scientific discovery. He was a key figure in promoting the principle, now widely accepted, that genomic data should be universally and freely shared. After retiring from his post at the Sanger Institute he engaged with organizations with interests in biomedical ethics and global equality. He was a loyal and supportive colleague to many, delighting in the international collegiality of the ‘worm community’, of which he was a founding member.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
LILLIAN MARY PICKFORD Morrison, John F. B.; Russell, John A.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Mary Pickford was an experimental physiologist who carried out pioneering work on the actions of the hormones (oxytocin and vasopressin syn. antidiuretic hormone, ADH) secreted by the posterior ...pituitary gland, which is part of the brain. She provided understanding of how the secretion of these hormones is controlled to regulate body fluid composition, specifically the maintenance, through actions on the kidneys, of normal osmolarity and Na⁺ concentration, and hence blood volume and pressure. Using the water-loaded dog model she showed that vasopressin is the only hormone that regulates the excretion of water, by stimulating the kidneys to concentrate urine; she found that oxytocin could stimulate excretion of Na⁺. She showed that acetylcholine is an excitatory neurotransmitter in the hypothalamus, stimulating the neurons that produce vasopressin to secrete—the first evidence for acetylcholine action in the brain. The principles that Mary established have been extensively confirmed; hence, she was important in the establishment of the concepts and discipline of neuroendocrinology, which is about the bidirectional interactions between hormones and the brain. Using human and animal models, in her later work Mary focused on possible roles of interactions between female sex hormones and vasodilating actions of oxytocin in the perimenopausal problem of ‘hot flashes’ (or ‘hot flushes’) experienced by many women. She faced, but overcame, entrenched gender prejudice during her career; she was the first woman to be elected to the Pharmacological Society, and the first woman appointed to a chair in the Edinburgh Medical School.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
SALOME GLUECKSOHN-WAELSCH Papaioannou, Virginia E.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch was a pioneer in establishing the field of mammalian developmental genetics, bringing together experimental embryology and genetics at a time when the role of genes in ...development was far from accepted. She studied in Germany in the 1930s with the renowned experimental embryologist Hans Spemann and then moved to New York City where she spent her entire professional career at Columbia University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Her career was remarkable not only for its longevity—she continued experiments well into her 90s—but also for ushering in new ways of approaching developmental biology in mammals. In her studies of the T-complex in mice, she made use of naturally occurring mutations as nature’s own experiments that allowed the investigation of the normal role of the genes in the events of morphogenesis. In her later work with the albino chromosomal deletions, she extended her studies to the genetics of physiological traits. Throughout the decades that saw a blossoming of the entire field of genetics, Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch’s work tackling some of the most perplexing problems in mammalian genetics firmly established the mouse as model organism, not only for studying development, but also for the eventual application of molecular biology techniques to development. Her published work is a beautifully coherent and rigorous opus, for which she received many honours. Her influence on a generation of geneticists, developmental biologists and the field of developmental genetics was profound.
The life of Salome Gluecksohn–Waelsch spanned a century that suffered the destructive upheaval of two world wars but also saw phenomenal progress in the sciences, including embryology and genetics. At the start of Salome’s career, these two fields were far apart and developmental genetics was barely a concept. Along with a few other pioneers, Salome was instrumental in establishing that genes actually had roles in development and in founding the field of mammalian developmental genetics. Her career laid the ground work for the eventual integration of genetic and developmental studies through molecular biology.
Salome Gluecksohn–Waelsch published under four different names at different stages of her life and career: Salome Glücksohn, Salome Gluecksohn–Schoenheimer, Salome Gluecksohn–Waelsch, and Salome G. Waelsch. Among her colleagues and friends, she was almost universally known as Salome and so for the purpose of this biographical memoir, I have chosen to refer to her by her first name, out of friendship and respect.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
BRICE BOSNICH Bennett, Martin A.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Brice Bosnich, an Australian inorganic chemist, graduated from the University of Sydney and obtained his PhD at the Australian National University, Canberra. He then worked successively at University ...College London, the University of Toronto and the University of Chicago. He had an abiding interest in stereochemistry and its relationship with chemical reactivity, and in the chirality and optical activity of coordination and organometallic complexes, mainly those of the d-block elements. His early studies concerned the topological and conformational behaviour of classical coordination compounds, mainly of cobalt(III), and made extensive use of the technique of circular dichroism. He put this background to elegant use in perhaps his most distinctive work, namely, the design and synthesis of a C₂-symmetric ditertiary phosphine, (S, S)-chiraphos, the rhodium(I) complex Rh{Ph₂PCH(CH₃)CH(CH₃)PPh₂}⁺ of which catalysed efficiently the homogeneous hydrogenation of prochiral enamides to amino acids in high optical purity. Bosnich traced the high enantioselectivity to the chiral array of P-phenyl substituents that is generated on coordination of (S, S)-chiraphos. In principle, catalytic enantioselective synthesis represents a powerful and economic method of introducing chirality into the synthesis of biologically active molecules, which, since the thalidomide tragedy, are required to be marketed only in optically pure forms. Dissymmetric ligands similar to (S, S)-chiraphos are now routinely employed in this type of synthesis. Bosnich developed several other enantioselective processes based on organo-transition metal chemistry. He also had several quasi-theoretical interests, including the possible use of circular dichroism to determine the absolute configuration of chiral metal complexes, and the development of a molecular mechanics force field for metallocenes. He maintained a strong interest in the properties of multimetallic proteins and devoted much effort to the construction of chiral binucleating ligands. During the 7–8 years before his retirement from the University of Chicago in 2006, he shifted his research to supramolecular recognition by suitably designed metal complexes.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
KENNETH JOSEPH ARROW Velupillai, K. Vela
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Kenneth Arrow was a mathematical economist and political scientist who made many ground-breaking contributions to the theory of economics and social values. His great mathematical ability led him to ...introduce new approaches to theoretical economics and in particular to a series of fundamental theorems in the discipline. These included the Arrow Impossibility Theorem, the two fundamental theorems of welfare economics and the existence of a competitive equilibrium. For these and many other contributions he was awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize in Economics shared with Sir John Hicks. He took a particular interest in computation and computability in economics. He was active and very productive as a researcher for over seven decades and was renowned as a generous and inspiring teacher and colleague.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
MARTIN HAROLD PHILLIPS BOTT Watts, Anthony Brian
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Martin Bott was a geophysicist who made fundamental contributions to our understanding of gravity and magnetic anomalies and their geological interpretation. His research on the deep structure of the ...Earth’s crust was both pioneering and innovative, and he showed how field geophysical measurements could be used to address geological problems such as the mechanics of granite emplacement, sedimentary basin formation and mountain building. When he began his research, the use of gravity and magnetic anomalies to understand deep crustal structure was in its infancy and largely confined to research laboratories in the oil and gas industry. Four decades later his lifetime efforts have seen the emergence of potential field methods as one of the principal means of constraining the structure, stress state and long-term strength of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle in continents and oceans. Martin was an inspiring undergraduate teacher and outstanding supervisor, as reflected by his many research students who went on to prominent leadership positions in academia, government and industry. He leaves a legacy of more than 150 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and a lucidly written and beautifully illustrated textbook. As well as his many scientific achievements, Martin was an accomplished mountaineer, a dedicated churchgoer and an avid gardener. He saw no conflict between his science and his enduring Christian faith.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
SIR DAVID CECIL SMITH Douglas, Angela E.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
David Smith was an international authority in the biological discipline of symbiosis and an influential leader in academic life. Through his work on photosynthetic symbioses in lichens and ...invertebrate animals, David transformed the field of symbiosis from a study of taxonomy and morphology into an experimental science. In particular, he applied novel radiotracer techniques to demonstrate that lichens are metabolically dynamic, with photosynthetically-fixed carbon transferred from symbionts to lichen host at high rates. His subsequent study of diverse symbioses led him to develop common principles underlying symbioses, including the regulated transfer of metabolites between partners and the role of ecological processes of colonization and community assembly in the establishment of symbioses. In his academic service, David had multiple leadership roles, including head of the Department of Botany at University of Bristol (1974–1980), head of the Department of Agricultural Science at University of Oxford (1980–1987), principal of University of Edinburgh (1987–1994) and president of Wolfson College, University of Oxford (1994–2000). David was biological secretary of the Royal Society (1983–1987) and he was knighted in 1986.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
AINSLEY IGGO Cervero, Fernando
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Volume:
67
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Ainsley Iggo’s research was focused on the functional properties of sensory receptors in the skin and viscera. He developed a new electrophysiological technique for recording the electrical activity ...of individual afferent fibres and was the first to record such activity from single unmyelinated afferents, the smallest diameter afferents in sensory nerves. His seminal work contributed to the discovery of nociceptors; the sensory receptors that respond to injury and are at the origin of pain sensation. He also recorded the functional activity of many types of sensory receptor in the skin, muscle and viscera and classified their responses according to their adequate stimuli. These findings gave support to the specificity theory of sensation, particularly of pain. He described the morphology of individually identified receptors, thus providing direct evidence for the long-held assumption that distinct morphological types of skin receptors mediate distinct sensations. Later in life he contributed to studies of sensory neurons in the spinal cord and of the sensory electro-receptors found in animals such as the echidna and the platypus. A native of New Zealand, he moved to the UK in 1950 and spent most of his professional life at the University of Edinburgh, where he created a highly productive research group at the Veterinary School.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
PDF
