The Society is saddened to hear of the death of Professor Ron Whittam who died on 16 August 2023. Professor Whittam became a member in 1959, served on the committee as Meetings Secretary and Honorary Secretary (1969-74) and  was elected an Honorary Member in 1986.

After leaving school at 14 and working as an apprentice in the family bakery in Oldham, he served in the RAF. During this time his natural intelligence was recognised: after attending night school, he obtained a scholarship to study for  a BSc in Chemistry at Manchester University. Later he joined Hans Krebs in the MRC unit at Sheffield University for PhD studies and moved with him to Oxford. There, his grounding in cellular physiology was developed and then extended as he became Beit Memorial Fellow in the Physiology Department at Cambridge and later, a Lecturer in Krebs’ Dept of Biochemistry in Oxford (1958 to 1966). He was appointed to be founding professor of Physiology at Leicester University (1966).

His studies focussed on metabolic pathways and ion transport. With Dan Tosteson and Joe Hoffman, he discovered how to make resealed red cell ‘ghosts’, a valuable preparation tool for subsequent studies of transmembrane transport processes as they could be used for altering the intracellular ionic and ATP content at will,  (Nature 1960 185 186-187).  His work was foundational in revealing the asymmetry of the Na-K ATPase stimulation by Na and K ions and the stoichiometry of this activity with ATP consumption. The importance of Whittam’s work was recognised with his election to FRS in 1973. This work also served as a template for later work on the effects of replacement of squid axoplasm with artificial solutions (PF Baker, Al Hodgkin & TI Shaw J Physiol 1962).

In 1966, he was encouraged by Krebs to move to Leicester to become the founding Professor of General Physiology with a department later renamed simply as ‘Physiology’. The department grew substantially under his guidance.

Professor Whittam had significant national science funding roles, for example, as co-chair of the MRC Biological Research Board and a member of the Biological Sciences committee of the UGC. The transcript of his fascinating Oral Histories interview for The Society is available at the website (https://static.physoc.org/app/uploads/2021/06/01141748/Ron-Whittam.pdf).