David Ish-Horowicz obituary

My uncle David Ish-Horowicz, who has died aged 75 from a brain tumour, was a molecular biologist at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), now Cancer Research UK (CRUK), from the late 1970s.

He was one of the pioneers in the application of molecular biology to developmental genetics. His research career focused on unravelling the intricate mechanisms that govern how embryos turn into complex organisms. He utilised both drosophila (fruit fly) and vertebrate models to identify and analyse the molecular and genetic pathways that establish and regulate spatial organisation within embryos.

His groundbreaking studies led to major advances in the understanding of many distinct molecular processes that bring a pattern to developing animals, work that paved the way for advances in developmental biology.

Born in Manchester, to Moshe Ish-Horowicz, a businessman, and his wife, Hava (nee Berman), David attended Manchester grammar school, before going to Cambridge where, following a natural sciences degree, he completed a PhD at the MRC laboratory of molecular biology.

He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Basel University, Switzerland, in the department of cell biology, at the Biozentrum centre, before returning to the UK, first to the ICRF’s Mill Hill Laboratories, then to the ICRF developmental biology unit, Oxford, and latterly at the ICRF/CRUK London Research Institute labs at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He received the 1997 Gulbenkian science prize and the 2007 Waddington medal of the British Society of Developmental Biology. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 2002.

David was passionate about science and the sharing of knowledge and ideas, which he did with generosity and enthusiasm. He was widely read, a skill valued by colleagues and friends with whom he would share the latest developments, revelling in the explanation of new discoveries. He never really retired.

When his lab closed in 2013, he was adopted by collaborators and institutions, dividing his time between Oxford’s department of biochemistry, and UCL’s laboratory of molecular cell biology, where he held honorary professorships, with Fridays spent in the Francis Crick Institute.

He continued to nurture young scientists, putting them at their ease in order to encourage them. His legacy is not only one of scientific advancement, but also his collaborative approach and his mentoring of younger generations.

He lived between his Oxford house and a London flat, pursuing his love of cycling in both cities, and enjoying entertaining friends at dinners in both, with his wife Ros Diamond, an architect, whom he married in 1988.

It was while working in Switzerland that he had developed a taste for espresso and dark chocolate and furthered his passions for good food and skiing. A lover of music, in the past few years he had started playing the piano again seriously, taking lessons with a professional to hone his skills, meticulously working on pieces by Bach, Chopin and Schumann.

He is survived by Ros, his four sisters, Ruth, Judith, Miriam and Naomi, and 11 nieces and nephews.