Lewis Wolpert

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Lewis Wolpert
Jim Smith[1][2]
Websitewww.ucl.ac.uk/cdb/research/wolpert

Lewis Wolpert

genetic regulatory network
of their position and role.

He wrote several science books, including: Triumph of the Embryo (1991), Malignant Sadness (1999), Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: the Evolutionary Origins of Belief (2006), and How We Live And Why We Die: The Secret Lives of Cells (2009).

Early life

Wolpert was born on 19 October 1929, in

Lithuanian Jewish origin.[4] His father was a bookshop manager and newsagent.[5] His aunt, Helen Suzman, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician.[5]

He completed his BSc in civil engineering at the

University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where he was exposed to progressive politics and communist ideas, and met Nelson Mandela in 1952.[5] He worked as an assistant to the director of Building Research Institute, Pretoria, before going to Israel and working for the Water Planning Board. He went on to study soil mechanics at Imperial College London and later completed his doctorate from King's College London under biophysicist James Danielli.[5]

Career and research

Wolpert shifted focus from applying his knowledge of soil mechanics to studying the science of dividing cells on the recommendation of a friend in South Africa. Partnering with Trygve Gustafson he worked toward measuring the mechanical forces in cellular division.

Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London until his retirement at 74.[5][6] Wolpert was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2002.[7]

French flag model

Wolpert was best known for the

genetic regulatory network of their position and role.[8] The model was based on Wolpert's research on sea urchin eggs and provided a framework for research into gastrulation, the embryonic process during which a living organism's body plan is established. Wolpert is credited with the quote: "It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your life."[10]

Biologists recognise Wolpert for elaborating and championing the ideas of positional information and positional value: molecular signals and internal cellular responses to them that enable cells to do the right thing in the right place during embryonic development.[11] The essence of these concepts is that there is a dedicated set of molecules for spatial co-ordination of cells, identical across many species and across different developmental stages and tissues.[11][12] The discovery of Hox gene codes in flies and vertebrates has largely vindicated Wolpert's positional-value concept, while identification of growth-factor morphogens in many species has supported the concept of positional information.[13][14]

Ideas

In a 2005 article entitled "Spiked", The Guardian asked a series of scientists "What is the one thing everyone should learn about science?" Wolpert responded:

I would teach the world that science is the best way to understand the world, and that for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Also, science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology – from medicine to industry.[15]

Of his book How We Live & Why We Die: The Secret Lives of Cells, Wolpert said the intended audience of his book was the general public. He said he thought the general public needed to understand that people are a society of cells, particularly if they wanted to understand humans.[16] Wolpert also believed that one very important, and so far unsolved, question in cellular research is the origins and evolution of the first cell, as well as the question of cell behaviour, which in his opinion would be useful for the study of illnesses such as cancer or Alzheimer's disease.[16]

Wolpert debated with Christian philosopher

William Dembski on the topic of intelligent design. In a lecture entitled "Is Science Dangerous?"[18] he expanded on this, saying: "I regard it as ethically unacceptable and impractical to censor any aspect of trying to understand the nature of our world."[19]

On 25 May 1994, Wolpert conducted an hour-long interview with Francis Crick called "How the Brain 'sees'" for The Times Dillon Science Forum; Just Results Video Productions produced a video of the interview for The Times. On 15 January 2004, Wolpert and biologist/parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake engaged in a live debate on the evidence for telepathy, held at the Royal Society of Arts in London.[20] Wolpert disagreed with Sheldrake on the possibility of simulating a cell or an embryo on a computer, which Wolpert believed would be attainable within 20 years. He stated that he believed doing so would predict in detail how the cell will behave, although he also admitted to the difficulty of this task due to the complex networks of proteins, protein-to-protein interactions, and the vast amount of molecules in the cell.[16]

In addition to his scientific and research publications, he wrote about his own experience of

Michael Faraday Medal and Prize for science communication from the Royal Society in 2000.[5]

He dismissed bioethical concerns about human cloning and embryo research, though he had stated a position against human cloning saying, "the child would almost certainly be ill or be abnormal".

British Humanist Association.[5] He was also a lifelong friend of the fellow South African and author Jillian Becker, editor of the Atheist Conservative.[23]

Books and media

After Dark
in 1994

In the early 1980s, he began broadcasting on

clinical depression at the age of 65.[5]

In 2011, Wolpert published You're Looking Very Well, a book on the social and scientific aspects of aging. The book was withdrawn from sale by its publisher in 2014 after being found to contain numerous passages copied without attribution from the scientific literature and from various websites, including Wikipedia.[25] Publication of Wolpert's upcoming book, Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?, was also delayed after passages of that book were found to be copied without attribution. Wolpert apologised and took responsibility for the errors with the explanation "totally inadvertent and due to carelessness".[25][5]

Personal life

Wolpert married his first wife Elizabeth Brownstein in 1961 in a marriage that ended in divorce.

Jill Neville and they remained married until Neville's death from cancer in 1997.[5] He married Alison Hawkes in 2016 and the couple remained married until his death. Wolpert had four children including Miranda Wolpert and Daniel Wolpert, professors in neuroscience and clinical psychology, from his first marriage, and two stepchildren.[5]

Wolpert died on 28 January 2021,[26] from COVID-19-related complications during the COVID-19 pandemic in England. He was 91.[9]

Publications

References

  1. S2CID 196585824
    .
  2. OCLC 500567020
    .
  3. ^ "Lewis Wolpert". The British Library. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  4. ^ "Professor Lewis Wolpert CBE FRS". Humanists UK. 24 May 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Lewis Wolpert obituary". the Guardian. 29 January 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  6. ^ "Lewis Wolpert". UCL Division of Biosciences. 8 February 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  7. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  8. ^
    PMID 4390734
    .
  9. ^ a b "Professor Lewis Wolpert, biologist, author and regular on TV and radio discussing science and depression – obituary". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  10. ISBN 9780486469294
  11. ^ a b "Humanists UK mourns Professor Lewis Wolpert CBE FRS (1929–2021)". Humanists UK. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  12. PMID 25804733
    .
  13. PMID 32272563
    .
  14. ^ "Hox Gene - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics". www.sciencedirect.com. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  15. ^ "Life Lessons". The Guardian. London. 7 April 2005. Retrieved 6 October 2007.
  16. ^ a b c d "The Secret Lives of Cells". Skepticality (Podcast). 8 February 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  17. YouTube
  18. ^ "Is Science Dangerous?" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 May 2006. Retrieved 6 October 2007.
  19. ^ Wolpert, Professor Lewis (11 March 2002). "Who's to blame?". the Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  20. ^ "The Telepathy Debate, Royal Society of Arts, London, 15th January 2004". Archived from the original on 9 July 2007. Retrieved 6 October 2007.
  21. ^ Tickle FRS, Cheryll; Smith FRS, Jim (2024). "Lewis Wolpert. 19 October 1929 — 28 January 2021". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 76.
  22. ^ "Royal Medals | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  23. ^ "Jillian Becker". Jewish Lives Project. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  24. ^ Wolpert, L. (Lewis). At WorldCat
  25. ^ a b Davis, Nicola (18 January 2014). "Eminent scientist Lewis Wolpert sorry for using others' work". The Guardian.
  26. ^ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jan/29/lewis-wolpert-obituary

External links

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