John tooze biography

John Tooze FRS (– 19 May 2021) was a British research scientist, research administrator, author, science journalist, former executive director.
John Tooze biography.
John Tooze FRS was a British research scientist, research administrator, author, science journalist, former executive director of EMBO/EMBC, director of research services at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute and a vice president at.

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John Tooze

British biologist (1938–2021)

John ToozeFRS^[1] (16 May 1938 – 19 May 2021)^[2] was a British research scientist,^[3] research administrator, author, science journalist, former executive director of EMBO/EMBC, director of research services at the Cancer Research UKLondon Research Institute and a vice president at The Rockefeller University.

Early childhood and education

John Tooze was born and grew up in a terraced house on Thornbury Road in Perry Barr, Birmingham where he attended Thornbury Road Primary school. At his second attempt he passed the grammar school entrance exam and joined Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham. In 1955 in the 6th form he won a State Scholarship and an Open Scholarship from Jesus College, Cambridge (BA, 1961). After leaving Handsworth School in 1955 he decided to spend 6 months working as a labourer in the cooperage of Ansells Brewery, Aston while waiting to begin two years of military service in the Royal Army Educational Corps in September 1956. He was discharged as a sergeant in September 195

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John Tooze biography

John Tooze has called the EMBO secretariat under his leadership (from 1973 – 1994) a ‘string and sealing wax operation.’ And to any of his successors it must be a mystery how he ran EMBO, including founding and editing The EMBO Journal and supporting Lennart Phillipson at EMBL, with only the support of his two invaluable secretaries Mare Kriis and Jenny Schulze-Eyssing. The answer is that he has always had an unerring sense of what can be achieved within the resources available.

That is not to say he has not been ambitious, playing a key role within EMBO in persuading the mighty NIH to change its guidelines on recombinant DNA, for example. And powerful research leaders have found him invaluable at turning their visions into practical reality. His training was a textbook preparation for the founding years of molecular biology. “I did my first degree in Cambridge,” he says, “a PhD at King’s [College London] in the biophysics department where Maurice Wilkins and John Randall worked, and then I spent two years in Jim Watson’s lab at

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John Tooze made a series of significant contributions to our understanding of the exocytic and endocytic pathways in neuroendocrine and exocrine cells and the exploitation of these pathways by enveloped animal viruses. He also provided the first evidence that endocytic membranes are utilised in the morphogenesis of vaccinia and human cytomegalovirus.

While making his important scientific contributions, John was Executive Secretary of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) for over 20 years and Secretary of the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC). John, more than anyone else, was responsible for building EMBO into an organisation with a vital role in the development of European molecular biology.

From small beginnings, EMBO has become a commanding influence on European biology, largely thanks to his vision and abilities. Programmes of meetings, courses and workshops have fostered European exchange together with fellowship programmes that expanded three fold under John's stewardship. In 1982, he founded The EMBO Journal.

Dr John Tooze FRS died on 19 May