One of the leading biological physicists of his generation has died.
Tom Duke was born in Claygate, Surrey, on 14 March 1964 and received a
scholarship to study at King's College School, Wimbledon. A degree in
natural sciences at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1982-85), was followed by a
PhD in polymer physics at the Cavendish Laboratory (1985-88).
After a short period as a postdoctoral research assistant at the Cavendish,
Professor Duke left the UK to take up a position as a Marie Curie Research
Fellow at the cole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles in
Paris (1990-92), and then as a research staff member (1993-94) and lecturer
in physics (1994-95) at Princeton University.
During this time, his interests began to shift towards biology, notably when
he and a colleague devised an ingenious method of using tiny pillars to
sort DNA molecules by size.
The year 1995 marked Professor Duke's return to Cambridge, where he served
as a Royal Society University Research Fellow until 2002, university
lecturer (2002-04) and finally reader in physics (2004-07).
A major achievement was a model of hair cells in the inner ear that
suggested how their motion might enable animals to hear - a model that has
been confirmed in lower vertebrates and may also apply to mammals.
In 2007, Professor Duke moved to University College London to become
professor of physics and was soon appointed deputy director for life
sciences in the new London Centre for Nanotechnology.
Despite his teaching and administrative duties, he was able to continue with
the major research that won him the Institute of Physics' Franklin medal
and prize in 2010.
Jonathan Ashmore, Bernard Katz professor of biophysics at UCL, recalls "an
easy-going individual who never seemed to take himself too seriously but
would always present some definitive statement with a nice twinkle in his
eye".
"[When] we organised a successful conference at UCL in 2010 entitled The
Physical Cell, it became clear that he had contacts in [his field] all over
the world and seemed to travel a lot (seemingly with a tweedy coat and only
a small backpack)," he added.
In his scientific work, Professor Ashmore added, Professor Duke's "style was
very much to use simple general theoretical principles to cut through
sometimes excessive biological information to the core of the problem".
As recently as April, a letter by Professor Duke published in Nature had
offered important insights into "how cells might self-regulate their growth
to produce well-ordered packing".
Professor Duke died on 25 June after a short illness and is survived by his
long-term partner and stepdaughter.
