Tribute to founder President Sir Peter Lachmann

The Academy of Medical Sciences pays tribute to Sir Peter Lachmann FRS FMedSci, our founding President, following his peaceful death on 26 December 2020 at the age of 89.

“We owe him a considerable debt and I miss a friend.”

Sir Peter paid a critical role in the foundation of this Academy in 1998, and served as its founding President between 1998 and 2002. An inspired leader and a kind man, we here offer tributes from some of the Academy Fellows who knew and worked alongside him throughout his distinguished career, in celebration of his life and his legacy for his family, friends, and the wider medical research community.

Sir Graeme Catto FMedSci, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen and founding Treasurer of the Academy

“Peter Lachmann changed everything. I had supported the concept of the Academy for some time and knew of, but had not met, Peter. When the Academy was established and without any preliminary introduction, he asked me directly and somewhat abruptly if I would become the first treasurer and simply dismissed my concerns - living in Scotland and having no aptitude for raising money being but two. Like an icy shower, Peter simply took my breath away.

“Not that he was cold and impersonal. Quite the reverse, he was always warm and friendly, just fiendishly bright with a directness in expressing his opinions that was always invigorating.  The meetings of the small executive group, Peter, Leslie Turnberg (Vice President), Mark Walport (Registrar) and me, were both great fun and stimulating, inevitably leaving Mark to implement the decisions. Peter had a clear view of what the Academy should achieve lacking only the resources to fulfil that ambition. With the Academy now a major force and well respected by the press, public, and professions as well as government, it is hard to remember just how precarious were its early years. Peter, without much help from his Treasurer, forged the way forward in his own unforgettable style. We owe him a considerable debt and I miss a friend.”

Professor Sir Robert Lechler FMedSci, Emeritus Senior Vice President of King's College London and former President of the Academy of Medical Sciences

“The clinical academic community owes a substantial debt of gratitude to Peter Lachmann, and at a personal level so do I. He was a man of astute intellect, always curious and keen to address issues both scientific and political that would advance the field. He was also an excellent allergist and clinical immunologist. I will never forget a dinner at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School when he received a Fellowship; I had given his citation and Peter was replying when a staff member collapsed. Various senior medics were trying to manage the situation. Peter was unimpressed and interrupted his speech to issue instructions! His clinical advice was, of course, spot on. His legacy is enormous and will be remembered for many years to come.”

Professor Sheila Bird OBE FMedSci FRSE, Formerly Programme Leader at MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge

“I knew Peter in his capacity first as Director of the Medical Research Council, but also as Vice-President and Biological Secretary at the Royal Society, and as President of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

“Both the MRC Biostatistics Unit in Cambridge and the Royal Statistical Society are indebted to Peter who – in the past 50 years – is the only non-statistician who has served on a Royal Statistical Society Working Party. Peter wrote an inimitably excellent chapter for the RSS’s report on 'Statistical Issues in First-in-Man Studies' and kept us tightly right on all matters immunological.

“The MRC Biostatistics Unit’s indebtedness to Peter arose as follows. Peter and I were serving members of Cambridge University’s MD Committee and happened to be seated together when Peter turned to me and asked: “What’s this about your Unit’s move back to London?” Thanks to Peter’s alerting me, David Spiegelhalter, Tony Johnson and I  – with critical help from Professor Adrian Smith, then Professor of Statistics at Nottingham and now President of the Royal Society – were able to reverse the MRC’s impending decision to move the MRC Biostatistics Unit from Cambridge to Northwick Park in London. And so, thanks to Peter, MRC Biostatistics Unit celebrated its centenary in Cambridge and is now a Cambridge University/MRC Unit.”

Professor Duncan Maskell FMedSci, Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Microbiology, University of Melbourne

“I first became aware of Peter in 1980 when I was a student at Cambridge, learning about his work. I remember well going to his lab to get some frozen individual complement proteins to use in one of my experiments on Salmonella. This was done with a degree of trepidation as he had a fearsome reputation!   

“On my return to Cambridge as a Professor, I was extremely fortunate to have my laboratories next to his. This was the building of a firm friendship, only enhanced by his fierce intellect and clear-minded rigour in all that he said and did.

“Like many great intellects of his ilk, he was at heart a very decent and human person. As his research wound down somewhat, and my group started to build, Peter was very generous in allowing us to move into some of his space and to use more of his equipment, and eventually bring into my team several of his outstanding technical staff.  

“Peter had a much wider range of interests than might have been apparent to some, amongst them bee-keeping, and his papers on evolution and religion, informed by the comparison between bees and humans as social animals, are extremely thought-provoking. 

“Peter proposed me for Fellowship of the Academy, something for which I will always be grateful, and it is one of the few sadnesses of being in Melbourne, where I currently work, that I am unable to contribute more to the Academy. Another of those sadnesses is that I didn’t really see him again once we left Cambridge at the end of 2018. I knew that he had been ailing for some time, and I am pleased that he died peacefully, just after his birthday, surrounded by family. Peter was a great servant to UK science and medicine. We have lost a great mind and a fine man.”

Professor Edzard Ernst FMedSci, Emeritus Professor of Complementary Medicine, University of Exeter

“Peter Lachmann was as great immunologist who made invaluable contributions to British science in general and to the creation of the Academy of Medical Sciences in particular. I will remember him as a generous supporter of my research who showed understanding and empathy for the problems that the critical evaluation of alternative medicine inevitably generates. Peter was an inspirational leader and a truly kind human being. His passing is a severe loss to all of us.”

Professor David Lomas, Vice Provost (Health) and Head of UCL Medical School

“Peter was a giant of medical science. His contributions were huge. I first came across Peter in person, as opposed to by reputation, when he examined my PhD in Cambridge in 1993. Peter worked on C1 inhibitor that controls complement and my PhD was on the structural basis of antitrypsin deficiency - antitrypisn and C1 inhibitor being derived from the same family of proteinase inhibitors. It was a very pleasant and wide ranging viva. I watched from a distance as Peter’s career went from strength to strength including Founding President of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Whenever we met Peter would always stop for a chat and a catch up on my work. I last saw him at the 10th anniversary of the Academy. He was a sparky as ever despite his advanced years - and asked me if I had managed to cure the disease yet! He was a brilliant man who will be greatly missed.”

Current Academy President Dame Anne Johnson PMedSci:

“I am deeply saddened to hear of the death of Sir Peter Lachmann. Peter was the driving force behind the Academy’s establishment in 1998 and our founding President.  His kindness and support continued long after this presidency with the Academy benefitting from his sage advice and wisdom in numerous working groups, workshops and symposia. He was an outstanding immunologist whose discoveries and insights impacted well beyond his field. Alongside that outstanding science Peter was dedicated to nurturing and mentoring the next generation of scientists. He was an inspiration and support to hundreds within our Fellowship and beyond and he will be greatly missed by all of us at the Academy. Our thoughts are with his wife Sylvia and their family.”

Lord Leslie Turnberg of Cheadle FMedSci

“It was Peter’s determination that ensured that the Academy came into being. Without his persistent advocacy for its creation, it is doubtful whether we would have such a flourishing organization today. He had been pressing for many years for a body to represent the best that the UK could offer in the medical sciences. While he was the Biological Secretary of the Royal Society he could see clearly that there was a gap. None of the Medical Royal Colleges, the British Medical Association or even the Royal Society could speak for biomedicine and he began to gather recruits for the cause. He persuaded Sandy Macara, Chairman of the BMA, that it was in their interests; he pressed me into convincing the Royal Colleges that there was a need for a body to represent the medical sciences and, most importantly, he recruited Sir Michael Atiyah, recently retired President of the Royal Society, to act as an independent advocate. Of course, there were hiccups, most notably with the Royal Society of Medicine, but in the end it was Peter’s tireless drive that saw it over the line.

“It was only natural that he should be elected as the Academy’s first President and it was he who set out all the systems we currently operate for the election of Fellows, the policy agenda and made it possible for the Academy to gain its first home in Carlton House Terrace.

“Those of us fortunate enough to have worked with him had no bounds to the admiration and respect in which they held him. His formidable intellect coupled with an unyielding bravery sometimes led him into disputes with foolish authorities, and of course he was always proved correct. But, more than the respect we felt, we basked in the warmth of the friendship of a remarkable man. He has left a huge hole in medical science and even more in the hearts of his many friends.”

Read more tributes about Peter's life from:

You can also read more about the beginnings of the Academy and Sir Peter's career in his personal hisory of the Academy's formation, 'First Steps', (published 2010) and in our Past Presidents section.

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