John Rodney Quayle

John Rodney (Rod) Quayle FRS (1926–2006) was a microbial biochemist, West Riding Professor of Microbiology and Head of Department at University of Sheffield (1965–1983) and then Vice-Chancellor of Bath University (1983–1992). He adopted techniques for dissecting enzymic reactions using radioactive carbon-14. He focused on microbes that used compounds containing one atom of carbon as their sources of energy and biomass.

Personal life and education Quayle was born in Hoylake, Flintshire. When he was around 5, his father left the family and Quayle moved with his mother and older brother to Cilcain to live with his maternal grandparents, who supported the children financially. He attended Alun Grammar School in Mold.

In 1943 he was award a County Scholarship for university study and he then studied for a B.Sc. degree in chemistry at University College of North Wales, Bangor that was awarded in 1946. He then studied physical organic chemistry for his doctoral degree supervised by Edward D. Hughes. He then moved to University of Cambridge and worked with Alexander R. Todd on the blood pigment molecules of the Aphididae insects. This led to the award of a second PhD degree in 1952.

In 1951 he and Yvonne Sanderson were married. They had two children, a son and a daughter. In 1955 he returned to the UK to a post at the UK government's Tropical Products Institute to work on pyrethrin insecticides.

However, he sought a post with more biochemical, rather than chemical, opportunity and through a chance meeting ended up collaborating with Hans Kornberg to characterise both the glyoxylate cycle and the glycerate pathway at the MRC Unit for Research in Cell Metabolism at Oxford University that was directed by Hans Krebs. Some of the most significant are: Quayle, J. R., Fuller, R. C., Benson, A. A. and Calvin, M. (1954) Enzymatic carboxylation of ribulose diphosphate. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 76 3610–3611 J. R. Quayle (1980) Microbial assimilation of C-1 compounds. Biochemical Society Transactions 8 (1) 1 - 10

Awards In 1978 Quayle was elected to the Royal Society and was also awarded the CIBA Medal and Prize of the Biochemical Society. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Göttingen in 1989, and from the Universities of Bath and Sheffield in 1992. He also served as president of the Society for General Microbiology from 1990 to 1993. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Bangor University in 1996.