Professor Richard HT Edwards was a physiologist and clinician with an international reputation for skeletal muscle research. A medical graduate from Middlesex Hospital Medical School, his interest in muscle developed during work at the Hammersmith Hospital and Royal Postgraduate Medical School and, as a Wellcome Trust Swedish Research Fellow, at the Karolinska Institute in 1970. He published a series of landmark papers in The Journal of Physiology, Clinical Science and The Lancet on muscle during exercise. With Professors David Hill and Victor Dubowitz, he secured a major grant to establish a Neuromuscular Centre at Hammersmith, then taking several of his research team with him when he was appointed Professor of Human Metabolism at University College Hospital (UCH, 1976). The group published important ground-breaking studies in muscle energetics, muscle protein turnover, muscle damage and muscle disorders. Richard became Head of the Department of Medicine at UCH (1982) and subsequently at University of Liverpool (1984), introducing major clinical and educational innovations there and developing an interest in chronic fatigue syndrome. He was subsequently appointed Professor of Research and Development for Health and Social Care at the University of Wales College of Medicine and Head of Research and Development for the NHS in Wales (1996-9)

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