Alfred Alan Eddy
Born(1926-11-04)4 November 1926
St Just in Penwith, Cornwall, England
Died24 October 2017(2017-10-24) (aged 90)
Disley, Cheshire, England
Alma materExeter College, Oxford
SpouseSusan Ruth Slade-Jones
Scientific career
FieldsBiology of yeast, trans-membrane transport
InstitutionsBrewing Industry Research Foundation
UMIST
University of Manchester
ThesisThe Physical chemistry of bacterial growth : the role of alkali metal ions in bacterial metabolism (1951)
Doctoral advisorCyril Norman Hinshelwood
Doctoral studentsJohn Skehel

Professor Alfred Alan Eddy (4 November 1926 – 24 October 2017), usually known as Alan Eddy, was a biochemist who was Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) between 1959 and 1994.[1]

Early life and education

Eddy was born on 4 November 1926 in St Just, Cornwall, the son of Alfred and Ellen Eddy.[1] After completing his secondary education at Devonport High School for Boys, he attended Exeter College, Oxford, graduating with a 1st Class Honours degree in 1949.[1] He was awarded his DPhil in 1951, supervised by Cyril Hinshelwood.[2][3][1]

Career

In 1953, Eddy joined the Brewing Industry Research Foundation in Nutfield.[1] Using snail gastric extracts Eddy, in 1957, was able to prepare protoplasts/sphaeroplasts of the yeast S. pastorianus; the ability to produce cell wall-free yeasts was important in facilitating much of later yeast research.[4] In 1959, he was appointed to the first chair of Biochemistry at UMIST; he oversaw the creation of the Department of Biochemistry from the previously existing Brewing Chemistry department.[5] He held this position until his retirement in 1994.[1] He was Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester until his death in 2017.[6]

Eddy's research interests were diverse, but his major contributions were in the biology of trans-membrane transport, in particular the functioning of proton pumps and symport systems.[7]

Personal life

Eddy lived in Disley, Cheshire with his wife Susan Ruth (née Slade-Jones), whom he married in 1954. They had two sons.[1]

He died on 24 October 2017 at the age of 90.[8]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 'EDDY, Prof. Alfred Alan', Who's Who 2011, A & C Black, 2011; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2010 (accessed 27 September 2011).
  2. ↑ Eddy, Alan (1951). The Physical chemistry of bacterial growth: the role of alkali metal ions in bacterial metabolism (Thesis). Thesis DPhil--University of Oxford.
  3. ↑ Eddy, Dan (29 November 2017). "Alan Eddy obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  4. ↑ Eddy, A.A., Williamson, D.H. (1957), A method of isolating protoplasts from yeast, Nature 179: 1252–1253.
  5. ↑ Wilson, pp. 16, 26
  6. ↑ "Personal Webpages". The University of Manchester. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
  7. ↑ Eddy AA, Hopkins P, Shaw R Proton and charge circulation through substrate symports in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: non-classical behaviour of the cytosine symport. Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology [1994, 48:123-139](PMID 7597638)
  8. ↑ "Alan Eddy obituary". The Guardian. 29 November 2017. Archived from the original on 4 June 2023.

Bibliography

  • Wilson, D. (2008) Reconfiguring Biological Sciences in the Late Twentieth Century: a Study of the University of Manchester. Manchester University
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