John Gray studied medicine at Clare College, Cambridge and UCL Medical School, graduating in 1942. After wartime physiological research with the Pacific Fleet, he worked at the MRC’s National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) on the sensory transduction of touch and pressure, moving later to the UCL Departmnent of Physiology as Reader. His series of papers in The Journal of Physiology (1950-7) significantly advanced our understanding of the Pacinian corpuscle and mechanoreception. He became a professor (1959), Dean of the UCL Science Faculty (early 1960s) and then ran the MRC (1966-77).After serving as MRC Secretary, he returned to research, studying the physiology of the lateral line in fish with Eric Denton at the Marine Biological Association Labs, Plymouth.

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