Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Research scientist

First Title value, for Searching Medawar, Sir Peter Brian (1915 - 1987)

2024-04-29T13:28:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007400-E007499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379682379682
Occupation Research scientist Zoologist
Details Peter Medawar was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of Nicholas Medawar, a Lebanese businessman. His mother, Edith Muriel Dowling, was English. He was educated at Marlborough and Magdalen College, Oxford where he achieved a first in zoology. His earliest work was associated with Guttman and Young on the rate of growth of nerve fibres but in 1947 he was appointed Professor of Zoology in Birmingham. Four years later he became Professor of Zoology at University College, London, where he continued his early work on cellular immunology and in particular to the role of lymphocytes in tissue graft rejection. His finest contribution in the understanding of graft rejection was by introducing cells from the prospective donor into the recipient in its foetal or neonatal life and thereby demonstrating the prevention of subsequent graft rejection. This outstanding work was carried out with Sir Macfarlane Burnet, for which they were rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 1960. In 1962 he was appointed as Director of the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill where his talent for research and creative mind was a tremendous benefit to many young scientists. Peter Medawar was also a gifted orator with a clear message which was so popular with his students and colleagues. He wrote essays and books which are a classic collection ranging from his Reith lecture entitled *The future of man* to his final major work *Memoir of a thinking radish* which was an account of some aspects of his life. Another popular book *Advice to a young student* is still an inspiring encouragement to students; whereas another study of biological ideas was published jointly with Lady Medawar and entitled *The life science*. They wrote together *Aristotle to zoos* which is a biological encyclopedia. There is no doubt that Peter Medawar was one of our most distinguished biologists whose discoveries have led to the wealth of tissue and organ transplants and given so many people a chance to have a better quality of life. It was a cruel blow that was delivered in 1969 when he sustained his first stroke and yet he was supported throughout his affliction by his devoted wife and family. He was a superb chess player, enjoyed squash and cricket, but above all he was an ardent lover of opera. In 1937 he married fellow student Jean Shinglewood, daughter of Dr C H S Taylor, and they had two sons and two daughters. He died on 2 October 1987 after several strokes which increased the severity of his handicap but did not destroy his spirit.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007499
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching de Dombal, Francis Timothy (1937 - 1995)

2024-04-29T13:28:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380084380084
Occupation General surgeon Research scientist
Details Tim de Dombal was born on 16 August 1937 in Sheffield, the son of Leonard Arthur de Dombal, a general practitioner, and Frances Edith, née Hire, a teacher. He won a scholarship to Uppingham School, and in 1955 went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read natural sciences. There, his prowess at jazz piano and drums led him to accompany the Footlights, and it was through this interest that he met his future wife, Nancy. He did his clinical studies at the University of Sheffield and qualified in 1961. After junior appointments in Sheffield and Leeds, including a research post with Professor John Goligher at the General Infirmary, Leeds, he was appointed successively lecturer and senior lecturer in surgery on that unit. In 1971 he became reader in clinical information science at St James's Hospital, Leeds, and in 1980 was appointed honorary consultant surgeon to Leeds Health Authority. In 1981 he became director of the clinical information science unit at Leeds University, and ten years later he was awarded a personal chair in this specialty. Tim was a perfectionist, and having trained in surgery he realised at an early stage that his real talent lay in pure research. He turned his attention to computerised data collection and retrieval, so as to improve the accuracy of diagnosis, especially amongst the more junior members of the profession. As with all pioneers his methods were not always readily accepted but he persevered in this emerging field of clinical information science and his views were regularly sought by the medical Royal Colleges and such major agencies as the World Health Organisation and NASA. For over twenty years he held the chairmanship of the World Congress of Gastroenterology Research Committee and directed multinational surveys both from the developed and newly emerging countries of the world. He travelled widely, and was an invited lecturer to more than 100 national and international societies and associations. He held numerous academic distinctions and was a man of enormous energy and intellect, conversant in several languages, and an undergraduate teacher who could simplify the most difficult problems and at the same time amuse his students. He was a member of the editorial boards of numerous journals and publications, and he published eight books and some 450 original papers, mainly on inflammatory bowel disease, clinical information science and the use of computers in medicine. In addition to this huge output he produced video teaching aids and computer programs which have been distributed to over 40 nations. His other interests apart from jazz piano included skiing, motor racing and astronomy. After receiving a second-hand MG as a 21st birthday present from his father he took up car driving and rallying, and latterly served as medical officer at race meetings both locally and nationally. In 1961 he married Nancy Denham, a teacher, and they had two children - Richard, who became an accountant, and Elizabeth, who became a general practitioner and, like her father and grandfather, also trained at Sheffield. Tragically Tim died prematurely on 31 December 1995, aged 58, following a heart attack while he was awaiting a triple bypass operation. His pioneering work in Leeds is, however, continuing under the direction of Dr Susan Clamp, PhD.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007901
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Burnet, Sir Frank MacFarlane (1899 - 1985)

2024-04-29T13:28:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007100-E007199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379357379357
Occupation Research scientist
Details Frank Macfarlane Burnet was born at Traralgon, Victoria, Australia, on 3 September 1899. He was educated at Geelong College and Melbourne University, where he graduated MB ChB in 1922 and proceeded to his MD the next year. In 1926 he came to England for a year as Beit Fellow, working at the Lister Institute. In 1938 he became assistant director at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. Many workers from the Institute visited Britain, but soon Burnet's reputation was such that the flow became reversed. It was instantaneously recognised that he had created an important centre of knowledge in the Antipodes and many workers from other countries made the journey to Melbourne. He was a pioneer in the early days of research on bacteriophages. He was the first to show that there were several types of poliomyelitis virus and he pointed out the nature of the causative organism of Q-fever, now known, after him, as *Rickettsia burneti*. From 1932 to 1933 he was in England again, working with Henry Dale at the National Institute of Medical Research. At that time the human strain of influenza virus was being extensively studied, and he advanced the technique of virus culture on egg embryo on his return to Australia. During the second world war one of the pre-occupations was to try to produce a truly effective influenza vaccine, which, to his great regret, he failed to do. He had, however, many triumphs, notably in his work on herpes simplex, psittacosis and scrub typhus. His other important field of investigation, immunology, led to his concept of "clonal selection" and into wider fields of genetics, epidemiology and ecology. These had wide clinical applications, embracing new theories on ageing and on neoplasia, some still to be substantiated. In 1944 he became director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute where he had spent most of his working life and was appointed Professor of Experimental Medicine at the University of Melbourne. On his retirement in 1965 he was granted an Emeritus Chair. Among the numerous honours which he received were FRS in 1942, with a medal in 1947, a Knighthood in 1951, the OM in 1958, the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine shared with Sir Peter Medawar in 1960 "for the discovery of immunological tolerance", KBE in 1969 and Knight of the Order of Australia in 1978. He was elected FRCP in 1953 and made Honorary FRCS in 1969. He was also an Honorary Doctor of Science of both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He was Croonian Lecturer at the Royal Society in 1950. Burnet was one of the century's greatest biomedical scientists. He was contemplative, almost solitary, but with a genius for "lateral thinking", so that he immediately perceived the value of theories and advances in fields other than his own, and incorporated them into his researches. This involved wide reading, and his own numerous publications ranged from the severely technical to the more popular, to be read with advantage by those in other disciplines. Inevitably he found himself involved in duties outside his immediate work. He lectured widely in the United States, was Chairman of the National Radiation Advisory Committee for Australia, from 1965 to 1969 was President of the Australian Academy of Science, and from 1966 to 1969 was Chairman of the Commonwealth Foundation. He married first in 1928, Linda Druce, who died in 1973. They had one son and two daughters. In 1976 he married Hazel Foletta. He died on 31 August 1985, three days before his eighty-fifth birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007174
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset