E. B. Robson, PhD (1928- 2016). Galton Professor of Human Genetics, University College London and Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Human Genetics, died July 18th 2016.

Bette Robson was Galton Professor of Human Genetics at University College London (UCL), Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Human Genetics, and an important figure in the development of our understanding of human genetics and gene mapping for a period of more than 40 years. She informally took over joint editorship duties of the Annals in 1976—when the previous editor Harry Harris moved to Pennsylvania— and was formally recognized as joint Editor-in-Chief (with C.A.B. Smith) in 1979. Her editor role continued until her retirement from the Galton Chair in 1993. After obtaining a 1st Class Hons BSc in Zoology at the University of Durham, her first research was done in the Galton Laboratory at UCL between 1950 and 1953. Lionel Penrose was Head of Department and she did a PhD on the knotty topic of human birth weight and stabilizing selection, which is still a significant area of research. This was followed by a year on a Rockefeller Traveling Fellowship in the United States, principally at Columbia University with Professors L. C. Dunn and T. Dobzhansky. After returning to the Galton Laboratory, she also learned a great deal from the very wide circle of scientists, doctors, and others who frequented “The Galton” in those days. In 1957, she moved from UCL to work with Harry Harris at the London Hospital Medical School, to broaden her experience and develop new techniques to identify human genes. This work was based on Oliver Smithies’s newly invented starch gel electrophoresis and genetic analysis of human haptoglobins. This work was very successful and led directly to the formation of a new Medical Research Council Unit at Kings College London in 1962, with Harry Harris as unit director. Bette introduced two-dimensional electrophoresis of human pseudo-cholinesterase (E1) and discovered a new polymorphism (Nature 1962, 196, 1296–1298). Within a few years she also provided evidence of linkage between the E1 locus and the transferrin (Tf) locus (Ann Hum Genet. 1966, 29, 325). With David Hopkinson, she set up a large international consortium to carry out linkage analysis (Am. J. Hum. Genet. 1965, 17,109) on the recently discovered red cell acid phosphatase polymorphism (Nature 1963, 163, 199). Working directly with Harry Harris, she carried out fundamental new work on the genetics of human placental alkaline phosphatase (Nature 1965, 207, 1257; Ann Hum. Genet. 1967, 30) At about this time, Lionel Penrose retired, and Harry Harris was appointed Galton Professor at UCL. A new research building, Wolfson House, funded by the Wolfson Foundation, provided a new home in UCL for the Galton laboratory and the MRC Human Biochemical Research Unit. Bette was delighted to move from Kings College London to UCL and to continue extensive gene mapping and assignment projects, which involved widespread collaborations. In 1969, she published one of the two first papers that mapped a gene to a human autosome: the alpha locus of the human haptoglobin gene to chromosome 16 (Nature 1969, 223, 1163–1165). There were also many new collaborations within UCL as other colleagues and collaborators moved in to share the excitement and the new laboratories. For example, during this period, Bette enjoyed extra help from Peter Cook with his ideas and expertise in gene mapping. Gerald Corney brought expertise on twins and family studies, and the MRC Blood Group Unit (Directors Ruth Sanger and Patricia Tippet) moved in to the Wolfson House, providing additional knowledge and resources. There were also many connections with “outside friends,” including Walter Bodmer’s units at the ICRF at Lincolns Inn Fields in London and Oxford University, John Evans in Edinburgh, and numerous other research groups in the United Kingdom and overseas, as gene mapping projects began to expand across the world. Harry Harris remained the Galton chair until 1976 when he moved to Philadelphia. In 1978, Bette became Galton Professor, and in 1979, she became the official Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Human Genetics. Over the years, Bette always supported the International Human Gene Mapping workshops, which brought together all the relevant information