My colleague and buddy John Midgley, who has died aged 88, was a scientist, biochemist and researcher greatest identified for the invention and improvement of thyroid hormone blood exams within the Eighties.
A pioneer in medical biochemistry, his work within the area of thyroid hormone detection vastly improved affected person care. John was additionally a passionate advocate for sufferers – as a medical adviser to the charity Thyroid UK, commentator and author.
Born within the village of Burley in West Yorkshire, he was the one baby of Edna (nee Clarke) and Maurice, an optometrist and chemist. He was educated at Ilkley grammar college and studied biochemistry at Leeds College, graduating in 1958.
He then gained a doctorate in bodily chemistry at Exeter School, Oxford, the place his supervisor was Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, a Nobel laureate, whose work impressed John immensely.
In 1961-62 John was a fellow in molecular biology on the Carnegie Institute in Washington earlier than returning to Britain to take up a lectureship in biochemistry at Leeds College (1962-67). He then accepted a place as lecturer and analysis fellow in biochemistry and molecular biology at Newcastle College (1967-75).
In 1975 he started working because the worldwide medical trials coordinator for Amersham Worldwide (now GE Healthcare), a producer of radiopharmaceutical medical merchandise, in Buckinghamshire. There, he and his colleague Terry Wilkins did groundbreaking work within the area of thyroid hormone detection. They received the Prince of Wales award for industrial innovation and manufacturing in 1985, and have become the inventors of, and patentors for, a brand new improved check without spending a dime thyroid hormones in 1988.
John then labored as an unbiased marketing consultant within the area of medical diagnostic gadgets for a decade from 1988, and as a medical trial abstractor for the Cochrane Collaboration on Gastroenterology (1998-2005).
After his retirement in 2005 John lived in Ilkley, however remained lively. He wrote many scientific papers, and was a part of a gaggle of worldwide thyroid researchers, together with me, Rolf Larisch and Johannes Dietrich, that contributed collectively in the direction of the fundamental understanding of thyroid physiology, pathophysiology and endocrine regulation.
John met Joan Hirst, a lab technician, in Leeds, and so they married in 1964.
Joan died shortly after John. He’s survived by their youngsters, Catherine and Edward, and 5 grandchildren, Ben, Hannah, Matthew, Oliver and Alexander.
