
Professor Ralph Ambrose Kekwick (11 November 1908
Leytonstone
Leytonstone ( ) is an area in East London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It adjoins Wanstead to the north-east, Forest Gate to the south-east, Stratford to the south-west, Leyton to the west, and Walthamstow to the nor ...
Essex
Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
– 17 January 2000
Woodford).
[J. Michael Creeth, Leon Vallet, and Winifred M. Watkins, "Ralph Ambrose Kekwick. 11 November 1908 – 17 January 2000" Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 2002 48: 233–249 accessed 11 January 2012](_blank)
/ref> was a British biochemist who did pioneering work on human plasma
Blood plasma is a light amber-colored liquid component of blood in which blood cells are absent, but which contains proteins and other constituents of whole blood in suspension. It makes up about 55% of the body's total blood volume. It is the ...
fractionation, including the first production of Factor VIII
Coagulation factor VIII (Factor VIII, FVIII, also known as anti-hemophilic factor (AHF)) is an essential blood clotting protein. In humans, it is encoded by ''F8'' gene. Defects in this gene result in hemophilia A, an X-linked bleeding disorder ...
.
Early life and education
Ralph's father was Oliver A. Kekwick (1865–1939) a managing clerk in a firm of ships' chandlers in Royal Albert Dock Albert Dock may refer to:
* Albert Dock, Hull, in Kingston upon Hull, England
*Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool
The Royal Albert Dock is a complex of dock buildings and warehouses in Liverpool, England. Designed by Jesse Hartley and Philip Hardwi ...
, London. His mother was Mary E. Price (1868–1958) who, aged 13, was a pupil-teacher at Bromley St Leonard's Church school, Bromley-by-Bow
Bromley, commonly known as
Bromley-by- Bow, is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London, located on the western banks of the River Lea, in the Lower Lea Valley in East London. It is an inner-city suburb located 4.7 mil ...
, London. Ralph was the youngest of her three children.
Ralph attended infants' and elementary schools in Leytonstone
Leytonstone ( ) is an area in East London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It adjoins Wanstead to the north-east, Forest Gate to the south-east, Stratford to the south-west, Leyton to the west, and Walthamstow to the nor ...
and in 1919 gained a scholarship to Leyton County High School for boys. His elder brother read chemistry at University College London
University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
(UCL) and his accounts of this excited Ralph and set him for a career in science.
At age 16, Ralph passed the School Certificate sufficiently to make him eligible for university entrance and he began at UCL in 1925, a month before his 17th birthday. He obtained a BSc with first class in chemistry in 1928.
Career
1920s
UCL did not then run undergraduate courses in biochemistry
Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...
but did have a small biochemistry department headed by Prof. Sir Jack Drummond ( FRS 1944). In 1928 Drummond gave a series of open lectures which Kekwick attended and decided as a result to pursue a career in biochemistry. He stayed at UCL doing work which included the hydrogen-ion dissociation curve of the crystalline albumin
Albumin is a family of globular proteins, the most common of which are the serum albumins. All of the proteins of the albumin family are water- soluble, moderately soluble in concentrated salt solutions, and experience heat denaturation. Alb ...
of the hen's egg.
1930s
In 1931 he was awarded a Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellowship
The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several co ...
which enabled him to spend two years in the United States. He joined Keith Cannan and resumed work on egg albumin and later published two papers in the Biochemical Journal
The ''Biochemical Journal'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal which covers all aspects of biochemistry, as well as cell and molecular biology. It is published by Portland Press and was established in 1906.
History
The journal was established ...
. He returned to UCL as a lecturer from 1933 to 1937, spending a year at the Physical Chemical Institute in Uppsala
Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Loc ...
, Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
from 1935 to 1937 doing work with Nobel laureate
The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...
Theodor Svedberg
Theodor Svedberg (30 August 1884 – 25 February 1971; also known as The Svedberg) was a Swedish chemist and Nobel laureate for his research on colloids and proteins using the ultracentrifuge. Svedberg was active at Uppsala University from the ...
on analytical ultracentrifugation Analytical ultracentrifugation is an analytical technique which combines an ultracentrifuge with optical monitoring systems.
In an analytical ultracentrifuge (commonly abbreviated as AUC), a sample’s sedimentation profile is monitored in real tim ...
. In 1935 a grant of £3,400 to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine
The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, informally known as the Lister Institute, was established as a research institute (the British Institute of Preventive Medicine) in 1891, with bacteriologist Marc Armand Ruffer as its first director, ...
in London was made by the Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...
to acquire an oil turbine and equilibrium ultracentrifuge from the Swedish institute. A special building housed the equipment because of the closeness of the Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...
and the need to protect other equipment from vibration. Kekwick assisted with the installation and in 1937 a Medical Research Council (MRC) grant supported him working at the Lister where he was offered a post. In 1938, Svedberg attended the opening of the new Lister Institute Biophysics Building. A steady flow of research papers based on ultracentrifugal measurements followed and in 1941, in recognition of his contributions to the physicochemical characterisation of proteins, Kekwick was awarded a DSc DSC or Dsc may refer to:
Education
* Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
* District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India
* Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine
Educational institutions
* Dyal Sin ...
degree by London University
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
of which the Lister was a part.
In the summer of 1939 he left for the USA with his wife and daughter (born 1938) to visit his wife's family and attend the Third Microbiological Congress in New York during which war was declared in Europe. His wife and daughter stayed on with her family while he returned to the UK – his wife and daughter did not return until 1944.
1940s
On his return to the Lister he continued experiments on diphtheria antitoxic horse sera. In 1940, Sir Percival Hartley
Sir Percival Hartley CBE MC FRS (28 May 1881 – 16 February 1957) was an English immunologist who was head of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Biological Standards Division for 44 years.
Early life and education
Harvey was born at Calv ...
, head of the Medical Research Council Biological Standards Division, raised problems with serum
Serum may refer to:
Biology and pharmacology
*Serum (blood), plasma from which the clotting proteins have been removed
**Antiserum, blood serum with specific antibodies for passive immunity
*Serous fluid, any clear bodily fluid
Places
*Serum, Ind ...
and plasma for transfusion. On storage, sterile human serum developed a haze owing to liberation of lipid from serum lipoprotein
A lipoprotein is a biochemical assembly whose primary function is to transport hydrophobic lipid (also known as fat) molecules in water, as in blood plasma or other extracellular fluids. They consist of a triglyceride and cholesterol center, sur ...
. This was visually indistinguishable from bacterial contamination. A method was found to produce a clear, filterable, stable product.
There was also a need for stocks of dried plasma or serum that could be reconstituted in emergencies. In 1941 Ralph moved to the unoccupied London County Council Serum Institute at Carshalton
Carshalton ( ) is a town, with a historic village centre, in south London, England, within the London Borough of Sutton. It is situated around southwest of Charing Cross and around east by north of Sutton town centre, in the valley of the Rive ...
to avoid the London bombing. During 1942–43 the ether-freeze treatment of human serum and plasma was expanded and 1,000 litres of serum and 2,500 litres of plasma were produced and used clinically. More work was done on human plasma fractionation between 1944 and 1954.
1950s – retirement
An expanding demand for dried plasma and plasma protein fractions and a new blood products laboratory was built at the Elstree site.
In 1952 Ralph was appointed Reader in Biophysics in the University of London.
The first effective concentrate of human Factor VIII was produced and used successfully and reported in ''The Lancet
''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, founded in England in 1823. It is one of the world's highest-impact academic journals and also one of the oldest medical journals still in publication.
The journal publishes ...
'' in 1957. Kekwick received the Oliver Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to blood transfusion.[(With P. Wolf ) ''A concentrate of human antihaemophilic factor, its use in six cases of haemophilia''. R Kekwick, P Wolf ''The Lancet'' 1957 647–650]
In 1966 Kekwick was given a personal Chair in the University of London and was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society (FRS).
Personal life
He met his future wife Barbara Stone, a graduate in English from Wells College
Wells College was a private liberal arts college in Aurora, New York, a village in the Finger Lakes region of the state. From its founding in 1868 until it became coeducational in 2005, Wells was a women's college. The college maintained acad ...
, whilst in New York in the 1930s. They married in June 1933. He retired in 1971 as his wife was unwell following post-operative complications – she died 18 months later. In 1974 he married his former colleague at the Lister, Margaret Mackay, who later died suddenly in 1982.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kekwick, Ralph
Alumni of University College London
Academics of University College London
Fellows of the Royal Society
Harkness Fellows
British biochemists
1908 births
2000 deaths
People from Leytonstone