Michael Abercrombie, 14 August 1912 - 28 May 1979

Abstract

Michael Abercrombie, Director of the Strangeways Research Laboratory since 1970 and sometime Jodrell Professor of Zoology at University College London was one of the most admired, respected and warmly liked biologists of his day. He began life as an embryologist, it is true, and was Professor of Embryology at University College London before he took the Jodrell chair of Zoology but no sectarian label really fits him. Michael Abercrombie was a biologist —one of those who strives consciously to see the whole picture. His great and enduring contribution to biological science belongs to the area of research that is nowadays called ‘cell biology’ of which Michael was a principal pioneer. Michael Abercrombie studied cells with the intentness, exactitude and clarity of mind that is characteristic of the foremost modern students of animal behaviour. Michael Abercrombie was, indeed, an ethologist of cells and his career illustrates how some of the most important scientific conceptions may grow out of the deep analysis of ostensibly simple phenomena.