Richard Keynes was an eminent cell physiologist. His undergraduate studies at Cambridge were interrupted by work on sonar and radar during the Second World War, after which he became research fellow at Trinity College, teaching fellow at Peterhouse and University Lecturer in Physiology (1948-60). He then joined the Agricultural Research Council Institute of Animal Physiology at Babraham, becoming Director in 1965. With Peter Lewis, he applied novel radioactive tracer techniques to measure ionic movements across membranes – work that directly supported Hodgkin and Huxley’s subsequent Nobel prize discoveries. He investigated ion transport in secretory epithelia and, fascinated by South America, studied the Electroporus electric organ, whose electrophysiological mechanism he had clarified early in his career. He published books on Darwin’s zoological research and served on Galapagos conservation bodies. Secretary General (1972), and then President (1981–84), of the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics, he helped establish the ICSU/Unesco International Biosciences Networks, later becoming its Chairman (1982–1993). He received the Order of Scientific Merit (Brazil) and Honorary Membership of the Latin American Academy of Sciences amongst many academic honours, and was awarded the CBE in 1984.

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