Simon Hugh Piper Maddrell. 11 December 1937—10 September 2020

Abstract

Simon Maddrell transformed our understanding of how insects regulate their internal environments, a major determinant of their extraordinary success. Raised during wartime on his family's farm, Simon was a grammar school scholar at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he obtained the top first of his year in zoology. A keen sportsman, he combined his studies with half-Blues in table tennis and athletics. After a PhD under the supervision of Sir Vincent Wigglesworth FRS, he took a fellowship at Dalhousie University in Canada. He returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, and took up a post in the AFRC Unit housed in the Department of Zoology. His academic work focused on the insect kidney, or Malpighian tubule. He unravelled details both of the mechanisms of secretion of fluids, ions and toxins, and of their control by the nervous system. His favoured organism was the blood-sucking ‘kissing bug’, Rhodnius prolixus , which demonstrated remarkable adaptations to handle massive (but irregular) blood meals. Later he also studied the classic genetic model insect Drosophila melanogaster , helping to lay the framework for combined physiological and genetic approaches in the same organism. Outside the lab, his massive energy and financial skills were potent influences on the Company of Biologists, a charity publishing scientific journals. Living increasingly in the family seat on the Isle of Man, he also brought his perfectionism to bear on daffodil shows and woodland tree planting. He is survived by his wife and four children.