His initial training was as a physical scientist and he graduated from Chelsea Polytechnic in 1944.

After working for a while in this role he entered Exeter University to read Zoology in 1947 and graduated in 1950. He then began a distinguished academic career, first at Glasgow University and later at Bristol University following his appointment there as lecturer in 1956. During these early years, Bob was able to study extensively in the USA and for a short time he held a post as Assistant Professor at the University of California (Berkeley). He visited the Universities of selleck chemicals Washington and Seattle and in particular the Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory and forged many professional relationships that lasted throughout his professional life. He was awarded a DSc by University of London

in 1965 and was appointed to the Chair of Zoology and Director of the Dove Marine Laboratory at Newcastle University in 1965 [1]. His early career was characterised by wide ranging interests, which often reflected his mathematical and physical training, and he was able to recognise new and rapidly developing fields of study. His book “The Dynamics of Metazoan Evolution” [2] is a masterpiece of scholarship, in which, uniquely, he analysed theories relating to the evolution Ganetespib manufacturer and inter-relationships of animal groups in the context of functional biomechanics. He argued that

any putative ancestral, or primitive organism, must obey the same physical laws as living organisms, a conclusion that is as valid now, in the ‘molecular unless age’, as it was then. Bob’s biological interests focused particularly on the Polychaeta on which he published extensively, both original papers and reviews – on aspects of neurosecretion, comparative endocrinology, behaviour, population dynamics and ecology. His influence in these fields was made even greater through the work of his many PhD students (the writer is one) whom he encouraged to publish independently. Together with his contemporaries in Germany and France, he did much to stimulate an interest in the cellular processes involved in the control of growth and regeneration in segmented animals. This work is now enjoying a resurgence of interest, in the light of the discovery of the Hox-gene regulatory system and its operation during development and regeneration in polychaetes. Bob became a successful Head of Department and, through strategic appointments and by attracting visiting scientists from USA and around the world, he created exciting research environments on both the Newcastle campus and at the Dove Marine Laboratory.