ROBERT RENÉ KILLICK-KENDRICK MPhil, PhD, DSc, FSB 20 June, 1929 – 22 October, 2011
ROBERT RENÉ KILLICK-KENDRICK MPhil, PhD, DSc, FSB 20 June, 1929 – 22 October, 2011
Early Years
Robert René Killick-Kendrick, son of Reginald Robert Killick and his wife Ellen Irene Elsie, née Newberry, was born on 20 June, 1929 in Hampton, UK. He died in France, where he had lived since 1998, following a relatively rapid illness due to a particularly aggressive form of cancer. Bob held joint Franco-British nationality. He is survived by his wife Mireille, and his three children Anne, Jacqueline and Timothy from his first marriage, in 1950, with Jean, née Warrington. ‘Bob’, as he was known to all his friends and colleagues and as we shall refer to him below, had a sister Una Adelaide, and a brother Anthony, now aged 85.
At the age of 17, Bob spent one year as a Laboratory Assistant in the Biochemistry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries, Weybridge, Surrey. He then spent his military service in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), during which he underwent a six month course of training in Anatomy, Physiology and Laboratory Techniques at York Military Hospital in order to gain the position of Grade III Laboratory Technician. This achieved, he was posted to the RAMC Medical College in London to work with a senior technician who organized the practical training of military doctors who were studying for their Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (DTM&H). Bob found the subject of Parasitology so interesting that he answered an advertisement for the post of Laboratory Technician in the Department of Parasitology in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). To his delight he was invited to an interview with Colonel HE Shortt FRS, then Head of the Department of Parasitology and a renowned research worker on malaria. In Bob’s own words ‘the interview was very brief’: ‘When do you leave the RAMC, Killick?’ – ‘September the 5th, Sir’ – ‘Then start work here on the 6th!’
On joining the Department of Parasitology, Bob was promptly assigned to work at the LSHTM field station at Winches Farm, St Albans where he was to help the first faltering steps of several PhD students (including the present writers). Here his previous training was of immense use to these students, whom he not only instructed in all the basic laboratory techniques required to carry out their research but also provided constant, good-humoured assistance in their field-work. He was a keen and proficient photographer and supplied excellent illustrations for many their early publications.
Under constant pressure from the writers and others to obtain a University Degree in order to use his expertise as a research worker rather than as a laboratory technician, Bob somehow found time, with great determination, to study for a number of Diplomas and Degrees, eventually culminating in his Doctor of Science (DSc, the highest academic qualification offered by London University). As far as we are aware, for much of the time this was without financial aid.
Before briefly discussing some of the more important publications among nearly 300 that were written or co-written by Bob [see the Appendix below for a selection of these], the following abbreviated curriculum vitae indicates both the meteoric acquisition of his academic qualifications and his extensive activity in the field of Parasitology.
CURRICULUM VITAE
Robert René KILLICK-KENDRICK
Degrees & Diplomas
Fellow, Institute of Biomedical Sciences (FIBMA), 1970
Diploma of Imperial College, London (DIC), 1970
Master of Philosophy, London University (MPhil), 1970
Doctor of Philosophy, London University (PhD), 1972
Doctor of Science, London University (DSc), 1978
Chartered Biologist (CBiol), 1979
Fellow of the Society of Biology (FSB), 1979
Honours
Hon. Member, Algerian Society of Parasitology, 1985
Hon. Member, Società Italiana de Parasitologia, 1991
Hon. Member, American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, 2005
Hon. Fellow, Royal Entomological Society, 2007
Hon. Member, Turkish Society for Parasitology, 2011
Sir Rickard Christophers Medal, Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, 1991
Emile Brumpt International Prize, Société de Pathologie Exotique, 2007
Academician, l’Académie des Hauts Cantons (Artes, Sciences et Belles Lettres), 2008
Professional Career
1946-47 Laboratory Assistant, Biochemistry Dept., Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries, Weybridge, Surrey, UK
1947-49 Medical Laboratory Assistant, Royal Army Medical Corps
1949-55 Laboratory Technician, Dept of Parasitology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
1955-63 Senior Laboratory Superintendent, West African Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research, Nigeria
1963-69 Chief Technician, then Senior Technical Officer, Dept of Parasitology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK and part-time Lecturer at Sir John Cass College, London
1969-76 Research Fellow, Dept of Zoology and applied Entomology, London
1976-94 Scientist and then Senior Scientist, Special Appointments Grade, Medical Research Council External Scientific Staff
1994-97 Visiting Professor & Leverhulme Scholar, Dept of Biology, Imperial College, London
1997-07 Senior Research Fellow, Dept of Biological Sciences, Imperial College, London
2007-11 Honorary Research Fellow, Division of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College, London
World Health Organization Appointments
1967 & 1970 Consultant (Malaria) Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Sierra Leone
1978 & 1979 Chairman, Scientific Working Group (Leishmaniasis), TDR, Geneva
1979-1983 Principal Investigator (Sleeping Sickness), Zambia
1980 & 1982 Chairman, Steering Committee (Leishmaniasis), TDR, Geneva
1980, 1984, 1985, 1988 & 1990 Consultant (Leishmaniasis), USSR, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia
1981 Consultant (Blood meal identification), Germany, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia
1982 Chairman, Expert Committee Meeting (Leishmaniasis), Geneva
1989 & 2010 Temporary Adviser, Expert Committee Meetings (Leishmaniasis), Geneva
1988-2011 Member, WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Parasitic Diseases (Leishmaniasis)
2009 Invited speaker on control of Visceral Leishmaniasis, Global Health Histories Series: Tropical Diseases: Lesson from History
2009 Temporary Adviser, First Stakeholders’ Meeting on Integrated Vector Management
Professional Societies
Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene:
Councillor 1975-1978
Honorary Secretary, 1979-1986
Chairman, Meetings Committee, 1975-1979
Chairman, Editorial Board, 1979-1986
Chairman, Garnham Fellowship Committee, 1996-3004
American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene
Royal Entomological Society, London
Institute of Biology (later the Society of Biology)
Institute of Medical Laboratory Sciences
Algerian Society of Parasitology
Société Française de Parasitologie
Società Italiana di Parassitologia
Turkish Society for Parasitology
Honorary Secretary, British Section of Society of Protozoologists, 1972-1975
Académie des Hauts Cantons (Arts, Sciences et Belles Lettres)
Scientific achievements
The Genus Plasmodium. As virtually the personal laboratory technician of Professor PCC Garnham FRS during 1963-69, Bob assisted in much of the research of Garnham and his team on the exoerthrocytic development of a variety of Plasmodium species of humans, non-human primates and rodents, and was frequently included as a co-author in the resulting publications.
Malaria parasites of rodents. Bob’s interest in these parasites led to his later collaborative work with Irène Landau on the detection of Plasmodium species in African rodents and demonstration of their exoerythrocytic development. With the mammalogist Louis Bellier he discovered and named two new Plasmodium species in ‘flying squirrels’ of the Ivory Coast, and numerous other publications were made on the malaria parasites of rodents. In review papers he indicated field and laboratory techniques for the detection and isolation of these organisms and their taxonomy, zoogeography and evolution. All this led to the production of the book ‘Rodent Malaria’ edited by Professor W Peters & R Killick-Kendrick in 1978.
A malaria parasite of the orang-utan. In 1972, Bob played a major role during his participation in Garnham’s expedition to Peninsular Malaysia in order to isolate and redescribe the poorly studied Plasmodium pitheci of this primate. The parasite was successfully isolated, and its development described in the blood and liver of a splenectomized chimpanzee that had been inoculated with sporozoites from experimentally infected mosquitoes.
The ‘hypnozoite’ – the latent stage of the malaria parasite in the liver Much later, in 1983, Bob’s technical skills were again to play an important role in Krotoski and Garnham’s investigations on the earliest development of the sporozoites of a Plasmodium species when they reach the liver following their inoculation into the vertebrate host by the mosquito. These studies involved the inoculation of rhesus monkeys with millions of sporozoites obtained by the dissection of a large number of infected mosquitoes, taking liver biopsies at different times, the preparation of sections stained by a special technique, and patient work at the microscope to detect the tiny hypnozoites in the parenchyma cells of the liver. The discovery of these latent sporozoites at last explained the relapses of patients apparently recovered from malaria.
Trypanosomes – Trypanosomiasis of humans and their livestock
In 1955, Bob started to work for the Colonial Research Service at the West African Institute of Trypanosomiasis Research (WAITR) in Nigeria, and in the Field Survey Unit of the late David Godfrey. After many observations on the best methods of diagnosing infections of different trypanosomes in all manner of animals, they made a 28-day trek of 415 miles accompanied by 28 uninfected cattle from a trypanosomiasis-free area to a distant locality where this disease of livestock was of common occurrence. Technical staff made a daily check for symptoms of infection developing in the cattle, examination of stained, thick blood films from each animal to detect possible trypanosomes, and a search for the tsetse-fly vectors of the trypanosomes. In this way the precise areas of infection-risk for livestock and humans were clearly pin-pointed.
Leishmania species, leishmaniasis and the phlebotomine sand fly vectors
On his return from Nigeria, Bob resumed his work in the Department of Parasitology at the LSH&TM once more principally on malaria parasites, but when Garnham ‘retired’ and moved to the Imperial College’s premises in Ascot, Bob soon followed his mentor and took up the position of Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology & Applied Entomology; his grant for his work on Plasmodium species of rodents had expired and he was anxious to embark on further studies. As he was particularly fascinated by the life-cycles of digenetic parasites in their invertebrate vectors he decided to set up a closed colony of a phlebotomine sand fly [Bob was insistent that the common name should be written as two unhyphenated words] in order to follow the development of species of Leishmania in the insect host. He obtained a grant from the Wellcome Trust and paid a visit to the Instituto Evandro Chagas in Belém, Pará, Amazonian Brazil, to discuss his idea with Ralph Lainson’s group of workers who also had a Wellcome-sponsored programme to investigate the eco-epidemiology of leishmaniasis in the Amazon Region.
He was advised that the best species of sand fly with which to produce a closed self- perpetuating colony was Lutzomyia longipalpis, the major vector of American visceral leishmaniasis. Brazilian workers in the State of Minas Gerais had raised a laboratory colony of this insect for several generations and could show him where to collect specimens. Bob duly went to Belo Horizonte where he collected a large number of engorged female Lu. longipalpis from a local cave; these he took back alive to Ascot and produced a thriving closed colony.
During this and subsequent visits to Ralph Lainson’s laboratory Bob was shown the unusual behaviour of some Amazonian species of Leishmania that undergo luxuriant multiplication while attached to the surface of the hindgut of the sand fly vector before migration of the flagellate stages to the midgut, foregut and biting mouthparts, from where they are inoculated into the skin of their vertebrate host. He also accompanied the Belém group to a transmission area of Leishmania braziliensis in primary forest, where the sand fly vectors were captured using human bait (a method now severely frowned on by WHO). Bob returned to UK not only with infected sand flies for further study but also as a patient with a lesion due to L. braziliensis – luckily successfully treated! His subsequent study of the hindgut developmental stages of L. braziliensis and L. guyanensis showed the attached forms to be principally paramastigotes, and a few promastigotes, attached to the gut wall by the insertion of the unusually short, stumpy flagellum into a crevice on the gut wall. Hemidesmosomes produced from the flagellum then securely anchor the parasite to the gut wall . These hindgut forms were clearly not degenerate parasites, as supposed by most observers, but an integral part of the parasite’s life cycle. This finding amply warranted the decision of the Belém workers to place all neotropical Leishmania species having this hindgut development into the new subgenus Viannia Lainson & Shaw, 1985.
Leishmania, leishmaniasis and phlebotomine sand flies were to remain Bob’s major scientific interests for the rest of his life. His collaborative studies with Professor JA Rioux and his team in Montpellier on the eco-epidemiology of L. (L.) infantum and role of Phlebotomus ariasi as the vector of visceral leishmaniasis in France and neighbouring countries, resulted in a number of fascinating papers concerning the sand fly-parasite relationship, mechanism of sand fly bite transmission, ecology and wind dispersal, and the need of the sand fly vector not only to take blood but also certain types of sugars from plants and ‘honey-dew’ from aphids. For almost thirty years, several collaborative studies with scientists working on vectors of leishmaniasis took Bob (and Mireille, with her uncanny magic in rearing the most difficult species of sandflies) to work in foci of the disease in many countries around the Mediterranean Sea, and also in Africa, the Middle-East, Asia, and North and South America. Finally, Bob was largely responsible for demonstrating the effectiveness of insecticide impregnated dog collars in killing or repelling sand fly vectors attempting to bite the major, canine reservoir host of L. infantum.
During the period of so-called ‘retirement,’ Bob and Mireille spent many very active and happy years in their home Sumène in the Cevennes mountains in the south of France, which they loved so much.
As close friends since 1953, we will greatly miss Bob; and we are sure that all past students and colleagues of this remarkable man will share with us in this sad loss.
Appendix: published scientific works
Books (as editor)
Killick-Kendrick, R & Peters, W. (eds). Rodent malaria. Academic Press, London & New York, 406 pp.
Garnham, PCC & Killick-Kendrick, R (eds) (1979). Festschrift in honour of CA Hoare FRS. Protozoology 3, 199 pp.
Peters, W & Killick-Kendrick, R (eds) (1987). The Leishmaniases in Biology and Medicine. 2 Vols. Academic Press, London & New York.
Killick-Kendrick, R (ed.) (1999). Canine Leishmaniasis: an update. Proceedings of the International Canine Leishmaniasis Forum, Barcelona, Spain. Wiesbaden Hoechst Roussel Vet, 103 pp.
Killick-Kendrick, R (ed.) (2002). Canine Leishmaniasis: moving towards a solution. Proceedings of the 2nd International Canine Leishmaniasis Forum, Sevilla, Spain. Boxmeer: Intervet international, 100 pp.
Peer-reviewed papers
Of nearly 300 publications written or co-written by Bob, the following have been selected as of major interest or importance in the fields of Malaria, Trypanosomiasis, and Leishmaniasis.
Landau, I., & Killick-Kendrick, R. (1966). Rodent plasmodia of the Republique Centrafricaine: the sporogony and tissue stages of Plasmodium chabaudi and P. berghei yoelii; Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 60: 633-649.
Krotoski, WA., Garnham, PCC.,Bray, RS., Krotoski, DM.,Killick-Kendrick, R., Draper, C, et al. (1982).. Observations on early and late post-sporozoite tissue stages in primate malaria. I. Discovery of a new latent form of Plasmodium cynomolgi (the hypnozoite), and the failure to detect hepatic forms within the first 24 hours after infection. Am J Trop Med Hyg 31: 24-35.
Godfrey, DG., Killick-Kendrick, R., Ferguson, W. (1965). Bovine trypanosomiasis in Nigeria. IV. Observations on cattle trekked along a trade-cattle route through areas infested with tsetse fly. Ann Trop Med Parasitol 59: 255-269.
Killick-Kendrick, R. (1968). The diagnosis of trypanosomiasis of livestock: a review of current techniques. Vet Bull 38: 191-197
Killick-Kendrick, R (1979). Biology of Leishmania in Phlebotomine Sandflies. In: WHR Lumsden, DA Evans (eds). Biology of the Kinetoplastida Vol 2 : 395-460
Killick-Kendrick, R., Rioux, JA., Bailly, M., Guy, MW., Wilkes, TJ., Guy, FFM., et al. (1984). Ecology of leishmaniasis in the South of France 20. Dispersal of Phlebotomus ariasi Tonnoir, 1921 as a factor in the spread of visceral leishmaniasis in the Cévennes Ann Parasitol Hum Comp 59: 555-572.
Ralph Lainson
John R. Baker
