SIR JOHN EDWARD SULSTON CH Waterston, Robert H.; Ferry, Georgina
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
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.
ALAN CYRIL WALKER Hlusko, Leslea J.; Ungar, Peter S.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Colleagues often refer to Alan Walker as the Eric Clapton (one of the most influential musicians of the late twentieth century) of palaeoanthropology in recognition of the artistry of his science. ...His field discoveries filled major gaps in our knowledge of primate evolution, such as elucidating the Miocene world of Proconsul and finding the transitional ‘Black Skull’ of Australopithecus aethiopicus and the skeleton of a Homo erectus boy. In addition to discovering these remarkable fossils, Alan was essential in bringing a palaeobiological approach to the laboratory interpretation of their bony morphology. He used the relationships between form and function in living species as a baseline for understanding the past, he pioneered dental microwear analysis to infer diet and was an early-adopter of the use of microCT to explore the internal structure of primate ear bones. Beyond these scientific accomplishments, however, it was Alan’s grace and generosity that truly set him apart from his peers. As the patriarch of an extensive intellectual family of students, postdocs and colleagues, Alan taught by example how to be intellectually creative, brave, meticulous, generous and kind. His legacy will long be felt in both the science and the culture of palaeoanthropology.
SIR DAVID CECIL SMITH Douglas, Angela E.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
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.
KENNETH JOSEPH ARROW Velupillai, K. Vela
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
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.
RAYMOND HIDE Read, P. L.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Raymond Hide was a physicist who worked at the interfaces between fundamental hydrodynamics, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), the geophysics of the Earth’s interior, atmosphere and oceans and those of ...other planets. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, and spent the majority of his career at the Met Office and then the University of Oxford. In laboratory studies of sloping thermal convection carried out at Cambridge in the early 1950s he discovered various regimes of vacillation and other multiply-periodic intransitive flows as well as aperiodic flows, now recognized as a form of geostrophic turbulence. These findings influenced seminal mathematical studies of what came to be known as deterministic chaos, and provided a paradigm for interpreting large-scale flows in the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets. Related contributions include general theoretical results tested by crucial laboratory experiments on boundary layers, Taylor columns and detached shear layers. His contributions to MHD include the concepts of potential magnetic field and magnetic superhelicity. He also initiated research on the dynamo origin of the magnetic fields of Jupiter and other major planets and its implications for their internal structure and dynamics. His extensive research on fluctuations of the Earth’s rotation led to new developments in areas as diverse as meteorology and climatology and studies of the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s deep interior.
BRICE BOSNICH Bennett, Martin A.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
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.
SIR PATRICK ALFRED CALDWELL-MOORE May, Alex; Longair, Malcolm
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
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.
JOHN NEWSOM-DAVIS Vincent, Angela
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
John Newsom-Davis (‘JND’) was a neurologist who played an important role in the discovery of the causes of, and treatments for, myasthenia gravis (MG), and of other diseases of the nerve–muscle ...junction. He started his career at the National Hospital in London, becoming director of the Batten Unit there, with an interest in respiratory physiology. He began to work on MG in collaboration with Ricardo Miledi (FRS 1970) at University College London and in 1978, after performing the first study on plasma exchange in that disease, he established an MG research group at the Royal Free Hospital, subsequently identifying the role of the thymus in this disease and demonstrating an autoimmune basis for the Lambert–Eaton myasthenic syndrome and ‘seronegative’ myasthenia. He was awarded the first Medical Research Council Clinical Research Professorship in 1979 but moved to Oxford in 1987 when he was elected Action Research Professor of Neurology. While at Oxford he continued to run a very successful multidisciplinary group, and began the molecular work that identified the genetic basis for many forms of congenital myasthenic syndrome. He also helped to establish the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB) Centre. Meanwhile he was also involved in university and college governance and contributed widely to the Medical Research Council, government committees, and the Association of British Neurologists (ABN). Among many honours, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996 and made a Foreign Associate Member of the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) in the USA in 2001. Following retirement from Oxford, he was President of the ABN and Editor of Brain, and led a National Institutes of Health-funded international trial of thymectomy.
JAMES ALEXANDER GREEN Donkin, Stephen; Erdmann, Karin
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
James Alexander Green, known as Sandy, was a mathematician of great influence and distinction. He was an algebraist, famous for his work on modular representations of finite groups, and the ...development of the theory of polynomial representations of general linear groups.
He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1968) and Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1987). He was awarded prizes of the London Mathematical Society, a Senior Berwick Prize (in 1984) and the De Morgan Medal (in 2001).
In his doctoral thesis, on semigroups, Sandy introduced fundamental relations, now known as ‘Green’s relations’. He determined the characters of arbitrary finite general linear groups published 1955. Sandy then turned to representations of finite groups over fields of prime characteristic; his work laid the foundations for the module theoretic approach to the subject. His next highlight is his monograph on polynomial representations of GLn
, published in 1980, which has become the basis for algebraic highest weight theory. Furthermore, in 1995 he proved a fundamental result on Hall algebras, establishing a connection between quantum groups and representations of finite-dimensional quiver algebras.
DAVID JAMES PURSLOVE BARKER Barker, Mary; Fall, Caroline H.; Osmond, Clive ...
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society,
12/2019, Letnik:
67
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Professor David James Purslove Barker was a physician and one of the most influential medical scientists of our time. His fetal programming hypothesis (known as the Barker Hypothesis) transformed ...thinking about what causes chronic diseases that are the scourge of modern society: cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The Barker Hypothesis proposed that the environment of the fetus and infant determined by maternal nutrition and exposure to infection subsequently predisposes the pathologies of later life. He challenged the idea that chronic diseases result from a combination of bad genes and unhealthy adult lifestyle. The environment of the fetus and infant, he suggested, permanently set or ‘programmed’ the body’s metabolism and growth, and thereby pathologies of old age. His initially controversial, but now widely accepted, ideas have produced an explosion of research worldwide into the complex processes of nutrition and growth during intrauterine and early post-natal life and how these cause adult diseases. His discoveries created a new field of research, developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), influencing global scientific thinking. David believed that ‘the poorer health of people in lower socio-economic groups or living in impoverished places was linked to past and present neglect of the welfare of mothers and babies’. Tackling the epidemics of diabetes and heart disease in the Western world and in developing countries would require, he said, a shift in focus to prioritize the health and nutrition of adolescent girls, pregnant women and infants. This focus has subsequently been enshrined in global health policies and priorities.
PDF
