Dr Elizabeth Marion Deuchar (1927-1979)
Elizabeth Deuchar, who died of cancer in January 1979 at the age of 52,
was an embryologist of distinction. After studying Zoology at Oxford she
moved in 1948 to the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh as a Ph.D.
student with the late C. H. Waddington. Her earliest papers, published under
his influence, were on embryonic induction, a topic to which she returned
many times. These studies culminated in 1975 in a book synthesizing many of
her ideas (8).
Between 1953 and 1966 she was successively Lecturer and Reader in Embryology at University College London and during this period she acquired an
international reputation as a biochemical embryologist. She was largely a selftaught biochemist, not an easy achievement for one brought up in classical
zoology. She published an important group of papers (summarized in (1) and
(2)) on the uptake of amino acids into the embryo from the yolk proteins, and
was probably the leading worker in this field. Following a short collaborative
period with Rudolph Weber in Switzerland, she extended her interests to the
study of catheptic activity, particularly in relation to regeneration. She had
also a special interest in the control mechanisms involved in somite segmentation
and together with A. M. C. Burgess published an important paper (3) showing
that a transmitted control mechanism was not involved in the formation of
amphibian somites, at least after a certain stage of development.
In 1968 she moved to the University of Bristol, and after her marriage in
1972 she transferred to the University of Exeter. In this final period she turned
to the challenge of carrying out on early mammalian embryos surgical experiments comparable to the classical ones which have long formed the basis for
our understanding of amphibian and avian development. In collaboration
with F. M. Parker (5) she devised a most useful technique for studying rat
embryos by time-lapse cinematography. She was interested also in the fundamental problem of whether certain drugs brought about their deleterious effects
directly on mammalian embryos or whether they interfered via maternal
metabolism (9).
Elizabeth Deuchar published over 60 scientific papers and three books, but
her influence on the subject went far beyond that. Apart from the fact that
she was an inspiring teacher to several generations of undergraduates and
Ph.D. students, she was one of those dedicated scientists who quietly organise
meetings and seminars, sit on committees and give their time unselfishly to
help others.
Elizabeth was a rather shy and retiring person, very much involved in social
work. She was deeply religious and at one time resigned her university position
to attend a theological college. Her whole life was coloured by a sense of duty
to the principles in which she believed.
RUTH BELLAIRS
2
Obituary: Elizabeth Deuchar
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
(1) 1962 The roles of amino acids in animal embryogenesis. Biol. Rev. 37, 378-421.
(2) 1966 Biochemical Aspects of Amphibian Development. Methuen.
(3) 1967 (With A. M. C. Burgess.) Somite segmentation in amphibian embryos: is there a
transmitted control? /. Embryol. exp. Morph. 17, 349-358.
(4) 1969 Effects of transecting early rat embryos on axial movements and differentiation
in culture. Acta Embryol. Exp. 157-167.
(5) 1972 (With F. M. Parker.) A method for time-lapse cinematography of primitive streak
stage rat embryos in culture. Experientia 28, 374-5.
(6) 1973 Biochemical aspects of early differentiation in Vertebrates. Advances in Morphogenesis 10, 175-226.
(7) 1975 Xenopus laevis, the South African Clawed Frog. Wiley lnterscience.
(8) 1975 Cellular Interactions During Animal Development. Chapman and Hall.
(9) 1979 Effects of maternal diabetes on embryonic development in mammals. In Maternal
Effects in Development (ed. D. R. Newth and M. Balls), pp. 375-394. Cambridge
University Press.