Kenneth Charles Holmes FRS (19 November 1934 – 2 November 2021) was a British molecular biologist and a pioneer in using synchrotron X-ray radiation to study biology.

Education and career

Holmes was born on 19 November 1934 in

Hammersmith, London Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. It ...

and attended the Chiswick School in London. He entered University of Cambridge and studied at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

, where he received a BA. He then returned to London and studied at

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' ...

for his PhD on the structure of the

tobacco mosaic virus Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus species in the genus '' Tobamovirus'' that infects a wide range of plants, especially tobacco and other members of the family Solanaceae. The infection causes characteris ...

, during which he worked with

Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer. Her work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal ...

Aaron Klug Sir Aaron Klug (11 August 1926 – 20 November 2018) was a British biophysicist and chemist. He was a winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biol ...

and John Finch. After a one-year postdoc research at the

Boston Children's Hospital Boston Children's Hospital (formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2013) is the main pediatric training and research hospital of Harvard Medical School, Harvard University. It is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children ...

of the

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

with Donald Caspar and Carolyn Cohen, Holmes moved to the

Laboratory of Molecular Biology The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) is a research institute in Cambridge, England, involved in the revolution in molecular biology which occurred in the 1950–60s. Since then it has remained a major medical r ...

, University of Cambridge in 1962, where he became a research scientist in the group of

Hugh Huxley Hugh Esmor Huxley (25 February 1924 – 25 July 2013) was a British molecular biologist who made important discoveries in the physiology of muscle. He was a graduate in physics from Christ's College, Cambridge. However, his education was inter ...

until 1968. Holmes then moved to

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

, where he established the Department of Biophysics at the

Max Planck Institute for Medical Research The Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, is a facility of the Max Planck Society for basic medical research. Since its foundation, six Nobel Prize laureates worked at the Institute: Otto Fritz Meyerhof (Physiology), ...

. He remained a director there until his retirement in 2003. From 1975 and 1976, Holmes was acting head of the EMBL outstation, the Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory at

DESY DESY, short for Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (English: ''German Electron Synchrotron''), is a national research centre for fundamental science located in Hamburg and Zeuthen near Berlin in Germany. It operates particle accelerators used to ...

, Hamburg. After his retirement, Holmes became an "Emeritus Scientific Member" at the

. In 1981, Holmes was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

, and was awarded their 1997

Gabor Medal The Gabor Medal is Awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society, one of the medals awarded by the Royal Society for "acknowledged distinction of interdisciplinary work between the life sciences with other disciplines". The medal was creat ...

which is of silver gilt and then accompanied by 1,000 pounds "in recognition of his achievements in molecular biology, in particular his pioneering analyses of biological structures and viruses, and his development of the use of synchrotron radiation for X-ray diffraction experiments, now a widely used technique not only in molecular biology but in physics and materials science". He was awarded both the European Latsis Prize worth 100,000

Swiss Francs The Swiss franc, or simply the franc, is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) i ...

in 2000 based on his work on "Molecular Structure", and the Gregori Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2001. His scientific biography of Sir

, "Aaron Klug - A Long Way from Durban: A Biography" was published in 2017 by Cambridge University Press. In 2021, he received the Lennart Philipson Award. Holmes died on 2 November 2021, at the age of 86.

References

1934 births 2021 deaths Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Fellows of the Royal Society British molecular biologists People from Hammersmith Scientists from London Max Planck Institutes researchers Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Max Planck Institute directors {{UK-biologist-stub