Professor Lewis Wolpert, biologist, author and regular on TV and radio discussing science and depression – obituary
After suffering suicidal depression, with his candour and dry humour Wolpert found himself in demand to talk about his experiences
Professor Lewis Wolpert: a knack for explaining scientific ideas
Credit: Eleanor Bentall
Professor Lewis Wolpert, the developmental biologist and author, who has died of Covid-19 aged 91, was for many the approachable face of science, as a presenter or guest on numerous television and radio programmes.
As a biologist Wolpert was best known for the “French flag” model of embryonic development, proposed in a landmark 1969 paper, “Positional Information and the Spatial Pattern of Cellular Differentiation”, in which he used the French tricolor as a visual aid to show how embryonic cells can interpret genetic code to create the same pattern, even when certain pieces of the embryo are removed.