Professor Walter Morgan

Biochemist of originality, elected FRS in 1949 and still active in his nineties

Walter Thomas James Morgan, biochemist: born Ilford, Essex 5 October 1900; Reader in Biochemistry, Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, London University 1938-51, Professor of Biochemistry 1951-68 (Emeritus), Deputy Director 1952-68, Director 1972-75; Honorary Secretary, Biochemical Society 1940-45; Honorary Secretary, Biological Council 1944-47; FRS 1949; CBE 1959; Vice-President, Royal Society 1961-64; married 1930 Dorothy Price (died 1993; one son, two daughters); died Cheam, Surrey 10 February 2003.

Walter Morgan was a distinguished scientist, internationally recognised for his pioneering work on the immunochemistry of antigens. Antigens are substances that stimulate the body's immune system to form antibodies and Morgan made fundamental contributions to the biochemistry of both bacterial antigens and human blood-group antigens.

He was born in Ilford, Essex, in 1900, the son of a solicitor's clerk in the law courts. After attending Raynes Foundation School in Ilford, he studied chemistry at London University. He started his research career in 1925 when he joined the Department of Biochemistry at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, a postgraduate school of London University, to study for a PhD under Professor (later Sir) Arthur Harden. The Lister Institute was to be Morgan's scientific home for the remaining 50 years of his official working life.

His early studies on hexose phosphates introduced him to carbohydrate biochemistry and this was to become a dominant theme in his work. The combination of carbohydrate chemistry with immunology arose following his appointment in 1929 as biochemist to the Lister's Serum and Vaccines Department, which was housed in Elstree, Hertfordshire. The rural surroundings presented an attractive change from London but the Elstree laboratories in that era offered little in the way of facilities for serious biochemical research. Morgan therefore settled down to learn some immunology and the day-to-day problems associated with the production and testing of anti-sera and anti-toxins.

His realisation that crude bacterial suspensions were being used for prophylactic inoculation suggested a project to prepare bacterial antigens in a more suitably purified form. Very little was then known about the chemical nature of the antigens of Gram-negative organisms but, by 1931, Morgan had described highly purified specific polysaccharide compounds from several bacteria of the dysentery- typhoid group. By 1940 he had established for the first time that the somatic antigens were carbohydrate-lipid-protein complexes. He demonstrated that, although specificity resided in the carbohydrate moiety, combination with the protein was essential for the production of specific antibodies.

The introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s obviated the use of the bacterial antigens for prophylactic purposes but Morgan's fundamental observations have been built on by others, and the growing emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains may yet make it necessary to have available preparations of purified antigens for therapeutic use.

Morgan returned to the Lister Institute's London laboratories in 1938 when he was appointed Reader in Biochemistry. This soon led to a change in direction in his research because the Second World War was imminent and the growth of large-scale bacterial cultures was deemed impractical in the bomb-threatened capital city. He turned instead to the subject that was to be his most important contribution, namely the human blood-group antigens.

He was influenced in this decision by the setting up of the Emergency Blood Transfusion Service and the fact that there was almost a complete absence of knowledge about the chemical nature of the clinically important ABO blood-group antigens.

Morgan's aim was to correlate genetic status with chemical structure, and he was very conscious of the need to use human materials and samples from single individuals rather than pooled specimens. In his attempts to correlate structural analysis of biologically important macromolecules with their genetic background, he was thus one of the earliest molecular biologists, although the term had not been coined at that time. Methods, such as antibody, lectin and enzymic inhibition with defined oligosaccharides, and sequential enzymic degradation with exo-glycosidases, used for the first time in such a context, established the carbohydrate nature of the determinants.

His crowning achievement, just before his official retirement in 1968, was the complete elucidation of the chemical structures of the five specificities associated with the ABO, H and Lewis blood-group systems and to have revealed their inter-relationships which explained many previously puzzling observations. This was all done at a time before any of the modern techniques for carbohydrate identification, such as HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography), mass spectroscopy and NMR were available.

The blood-group antigens were the first mammalian cell surface carbohydrate antigens to be identified and to be recognised as secondary rather than primary products of the genes that regulate their appearance. The demonstration that the relevant genes encode glycosyl transferase enzymes has enabled others to clone these genes so that blood-grouping can now be performed by DNA techniques.

After his official retirement Morgan continued to work at the bench until he was 90 and, with colleagues, chemically characterised two more blood-group antigens, P1 and Sda, which also proved to be carbohydrate in nature. When he ceased to be actively engaged in research he retained a keen interest in the progress of immunochemistry, glycobiology and blood transfusion science. In his 100th year he attended an international Blood Transfusion congress in Vienna.

Walter Morgan was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1949 and was Vice-President from 1961 to 1964. He served on various government committees concerned wth the development of biological sciences and was appointed CBE in 1959. His pioneering contributions to immunochemistry were recognised by many honours and awards.

Throughout his career Morgan's work was characterised by originality, a sound application of chemistry, a willingness to pursue lesser-worn paths and a zestful dedication to his task in hand. The early experience of carrying out research with limited facilities taught the value of carrying out simple experiments and this lesson he sought to pass on to students and colleagues.

For those who shared his enthusiasm he was generous with his time and support, and his cheerful friendliness, modesty and courtesy earned him the esteem and affection of colleagues and friends.

Winifred M. Watkins