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IN LOVING MEMORY OF Kenneth Walter Fisher
Kenneth Walter
Fisher
d. Jan 1, 2016
Kenneth Walter Fisher's Obituary
Kenneth Walter Fisher passed away peacefully surrounded by his wife and children on January 1, 2016. He was born on December 30, 1931 in Heston, Middlesex England to Walter and Matilda Fisher and grew up in London. When World War II was imminent, the family cottage was requisitioned to house Polish fighter pilots and the family was relocated to a house where they enjoyed electricity and piped water for the first time. He excelled in his studies despite the challenges of growing up in the midst of wartime England.
He completed his Bachelor's degree at Queen Mary College of London and his Master's from University College London. Subsequently, he was the recipient of a British Empire Cancer Campaign Fellowship in the emerging field of microbiology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, under the direction of Professor William H. Hayes, receiving his Ph.D. in 1957 on the mechanism of Gene Transfer in bacterium Escherichia coli . In the same year he was one of the founding staff members of the Medical Research Council (UK) Microbial Genetics Research Unit at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and also received an award from the M, R. C. unit at Kings college to spend a year at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with Professor Francois Jacob. Upon returning to London he worked for a time with Professor Maurice Wilkins at the Kings College, University of London MRC Unit. In 1961, at the Biochemistry Congress in Moscow, he was invited to join a panel of Western Geneticists and meet with a group of clandestine Soviet geneticists at Kurchatov's Institute of Atomis energy in Moscow, to inform researchers behind the Iron curtain of progress in Molecular Genetics in the west, since Genetics had been banned in the USSR under the influence of Lysenko and Stalin. Also in 1961 he was invited by Francis Crick to broadcast on BBC's science programs "Accelerators and Brakes in biological systems. He assisted Professor Wm Hayes with early BBC TV science broadcasts on Microbial Genetics hosted by Dr. Crick focusing on important current findings in the emerging field He was subsequently awarded the Rockefeller Fellowship that presented the opportunity of emigrating to the United States where he worked under Dr. Arthur Pardee at Princeton University, studying repression of virus and protein synthesis, and gave seminars throughout the USA: including M.I.T., Princeton, Washington University, St. Louis, Berkley, Stanford, and Caltech. While in Dr. Pardee's lab, in 1963 he met his future wife; Mettie Barton Whipple, a Princeton Graduate student with Professor Pardee. They were married in July 1965 in Heston, Middlesex, UK. After doing another year of research at Hammersmith Hospital in London and a 4-year appointment as Director of the Graduate Program in the Sciences at Kansas State University, they settled in Princeton New Jersey to raise their family. Dr. Fisher went on to become chairman of the department of Biology at Rutgers University, Douglas Campus. During his teaching tenure he focused on both undergraduate and graduate studies in genetics and mutational biology.
After retiring, his life revolved around bee keeping, gardening, and caring for his devoted family. He is survived by his beloved wife of 50 years, Mettie Barton Fisher; two sons, Sean Hayes Fisher (Ellen) of Barrington, RI, and Galen Hunt Fisher(Joi) of Richmond, VA; three step-children, Mettie Micheaux Whipple (Nipper Harding) of Yarmouth, ME, Sherman Taylor Whipple of Hull, MA, Louise Whipple Gillock (J.T.) of Franklin, KY ; eleven grandchildren; one great grandson: and his sister Myra Head (David) of Reading, England.
Services will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton, New Jersey on Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 10:30 a.m. Interment will be in Nashville, TN at a later date.
He completed his Bachelor's degree at Queen Mary College of London and his Master's from University College London. Subsequently, he was the recipient of a British Empire Cancer Campaign Fellowship in the emerging field of microbiology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, under the direction of Professor William H. Hayes, receiving his Ph.D. in 1957 on the mechanism of Gene Transfer in bacterium Escherichia coli . In the same year he was one of the founding staff members of the Medical Research Council (UK) Microbial Genetics Research Unit at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and also received an award from the M, R. C. unit at Kings college to spend a year at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with Professor Francois Jacob. Upon returning to London he worked for a time with Professor Maurice Wilkins at the Kings College, University of London MRC Unit. In 1961, at the Biochemistry Congress in Moscow, he was invited to join a panel of Western Geneticists and meet with a group of clandestine Soviet geneticists at Kurchatov's Institute of Atomis energy in Moscow, to inform researchers behind the Iron curtain of progress in Molecular Genetics in the west, since Genetics had been banned in the USSR under the influence of Lysenko and Stalin. Also in 1961 he was invited by Francis Crick to broadcast on BBC's science programs "Accelerators and Brakes in biological systems. He assisted Professor Wm Hayes with early BBC TV science broadcasts on Microbial Genetics hosted by Dr. Crick focusing on important current findings in the emerging field He was subsequently awarded the Rockefeller Fellowship that presented the opportunity of emigrating to the United States where he worked under Dr. Arthur Pardee at Princeton University, studying repression of virus and protein synthesis, and gave seminars throughout the USA: including M.I.T., Princeton, Washington University, St. Louis, Berkley, Stanford, and Caltech. While in Dr. Pardee's lab, in 1963 he met his future wife; Mettie Barton Whipple, a Princeton Graduate student with Professor Pardee. They were married in July 1965 in Heston, Middlesex, UK. After doing another year of research at Hammersmith Hospital in London and a 4-year appointment as Director of the Graduate Program in the Sciences at Kansas State University, they settled in Princeton New Jersey to raise their family. Dr. Fisher went on to become chairman of the department of Biology at Rutgers University, Douglas Campus. During his teaching tenure he focused on both undergraduate and graduate studies in genetics and mutational biology.
After retiring, his life revolved around bee keeping, gardening, and caring for his devoted family. He is survived by his beloved wife of 50 years, Mettie Barton Fisher; two sons, Sean Hayes Fisher (Ellen) of Barrington, RI, and Galen Hunt Fisher(Joi) of Richmond, VA; three step-children, Mettie Micheaux Whipple (Nipper Harding) of Yarmouth, ME, Sherman Taylor Whipple of Hull, MA, Louise Whipple Gillock (J.T.) of Franklin, KY ; eleven grandchildren; one great grandson: and his sister Myra Head (David) of Reading, England.
Services will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton, New Jersey on Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 10:30 a.m. Interment will be in Nashville, TN at a later date.
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Funeral Services for Kenneth Walter Fisher
Memorial Service
January
9
Saturday
Trinity Church
Starts at 10:30 am
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