Kenneth Burton

Kenneth Burton FRS (26 June 1926 – 22 November 2010) was a British biochemist, and Professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was educated at High Pavement Grammar School (Nottingham), Wath Grammar School and King's College, Cambridge.

Career University of Sheffield, 1949–52 On completing his PhD in 1949, Burton applied for an advertised Assistant Lectureship in Krebs’s Department of Biochemistry at the University of Sheffield.

University of Chicago, 1952–54 In September 1952 Kenneth Burton sailed on the Queen Mary to New York. From there he travelled to the University of Chicago to join a group which included Frank W. Putnam and Lloyd M. Kozloff. in which he showed that viral DNA synthesis (in bacteria) required viral proteins to be synthesized first proved to be important. This is a very fundamental point in understanding viruses and antiviral medicines. Virus reproduction requires viral proteins.

Another, perhaps even more important paper appeared in 1957. "It was an appendix to a massive paper by Krebs and Kornberg, in which he calculated and listed the free energies of formation of all of the compounds of energy metabolism, from the sugar we eat to the CO2 we breathe out, and most things in between ... It allows us to understand why things happen, everything from the contraction of muscle to the synthesis of protein". His new Department was opened by Krebs.

External activities Burton served at the national level on several scientific and editorial committees: Editorial Board, Biochemical Journal (1959–64) Biological Research Board, MRC (1967–71) Chairman of Grants Committee 1, MRC Biological Research Board (1969–71) Joint MRC/CRC Committee on Support of Cancer Research (1970–72) Science Research Council Research Group 2 (grant committee) of Biological Sciences Committee (1974–77) Science Research Council Representative on MRC Subcommittee of Molecular Biology (1975–76) Biochemical Society Committee (1975–78) British National Committee for Biochemistry (1978–82) EMBL Users’ Committee (1979–81) Associate Editor, Royal Society (1979–82)

Personal life Ken married Hilda Marsden on 3 September 1955 at Heeley Church, Sheffield. Their son, Andrew James, was born in 1957 at home in Kidlington. Angela Mary was born a year later, also in Kidlington.

Ken was left seriously incapacitated by a severe stroke and took early retirement in 1989. In time, he taught himself to walk again using a self-propelled cylinder mower, and largely recovered his mobility and speech. Kenneth Burton died of cancer in Alfriston. He was survived by his wife and two children.