IN MEMORIAM: JOHN FOXTON ROSS KERR

Kerr, Wyllie, and Currie 1972¹ is a classic paper that should be on the reading list of cell biology classes worldwide. Likewise, an obituary in Cell Death and Differentiation² sums John Kerr’s admirable career as a founder of the field.

It is also worth reflecting on the man that John Kerr was.

He wrote in an era before social media and even Microsoft Word offer to compose all our thoughts. John had been writing about “shrinkage necrosis” for several years, but the term “apoptosis” was elegant and eloquent. Not only did the word imply universality, but it also captured the sense that cell death was the end of a universal cycle that began with mitosis, and that cell death was as important and as worthy of study as the beginning. Thus, that paper launched a generation of researchers.

It was also typical of John the individual: precise, profound, thoughtful, gentle, diffident and caring; meticulous in detail as he collected regional variants of Lepidoptera so that we could better understand the mechanics of how evolution worked; gentle and loving with Maureen, and considerate to everyone he met. That was how he was when Zahra and I first met him in Sardinia in 1989, and every other time that we encountered him. Sharad Kumar shares that he typically hand-wrote letters of congratulations to national colleagues. He is an exemplar of why students should learn about the lives of scientists and not just their work. We will cherish his memory.

John F R Kerr (Contributed by Maureen Field Kerr); letter from John Kerr to Sharad Kumar (contributed by Sharad Kumar).

 

¹Kerr JF, Wyllie AH, Currie AR. Apoptosis: a basic biological phenomenon with wide-ranging implications in tissue kinetics. Br J Cancer. 1972 Aug;26(4):239-57. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1972.33. PMID: 4561027; PMCID: PMC2008650.

²Cummings, M.C., Vaux, D.L., Strasser, A. et al. John F. R. Kerr (1934–2024). Cell Death Differ 31, 955–956 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41418-024-01338-