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Professor James Francis Tait

Born 1 Dec 1925 Stockton-on-Tees

Died 2 Feb 2014 Harrogate ( aged 88)

Institutions : Middlesex Hospital, University of London, Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, Mass, USA

Spouse : Sylvia Agnes Sophia Tait (1917-2003)

James Francis Tait was an English physicist and endocrinologist. He worked with his wife, Sylvia Agnes Sophia Tait from 1948 until her death in 2003⁽¹⁾, a partnership described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography⁽²⁾ as “one of the most successful examples of husband-wife collaboration”. Together , they discovered and identified the hormone alsdosterone, the last of a series of naturally occurring biological potent steroid hormones to be isolated and identified. Aldosterone is part of the mechanism that regulates blood pressure and causes conservation of sodium, secretion of potassium, increased water retention, and increased blood pressure. It is thought to be responsible for 15 per cent of cases of high blood pressure.

1) Early Life James Tait was born in Stockton on Tees, the son of Herbert and Constance Tait (neé Brotherton ) . His parents ran a small grocery shop, but his father died when James was just 10. He attended Darlington Queen Elizabeth 1 Grammar School, where he took Physics, Chemistry, Maths and English Literature for the Higher School Certificate. Chemistry was his favourite subject, and he had an advanced chemistry set at home which caused some unfortunate incidents ! At 17 he went on to Leeds University to read Physics and graduated with a 1st in 1945. He then joined the research group of Professor Whiddington at Leeds completing his PhD thesis entitled “ The energy distribution of electrons in discharge tubes” in 1947.

2) Academic Career On leaving Leeds, James joined the Department of medical physics at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London, as a lecturer. Here he started to work with his future wife, Sylvia on adrenal steroids, building on work by Ralph Dorfman. They developed techniques to detect adrenal steroids on paper chromatograms using ultraviolet light and went on to discover a previously unknown biologically active compound which they called electrocortin ( later renamed aldosterone). They collaborated with the eminent Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein who had just received the Nobel Prize for similar work on cortisol. The discovery was published in Nature in a paper “Isolation of a highly active minerocorticoid from beef adrenal extract” in 1952. A full description of the work is given in their semi-autobiographical monogram “A quartet of scientific discoveries” published in 2004.⁽³⁾ In 1958 the Taits moved to the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in the USA, where they worked with Gregory Pincus. Here, James developed mathematical methods to calculate hormone secretion rates from changes in the ratio of radioactively labelled to unlabelled hormone in urine. This developed into a new field of study – hormone dynamics. A period of study leave was taken at the Physiology Department at the University of Melbourne in Australia and at the Howard Florey Institute. Following the death of Gregory Pincus, James became joint chairman ( with M.C Chang) of the scientific council of the Worcester Foundation. In 1970 James and Sylvia returned to the Middlesex Hospital⁽⁴⁾ as joint heads of the Biophysical Endocrinology Unit. James was also Joel Professor of Physics as Applied to Medicine. They worked on adrenal zona glomerulosa cells. The Taits retired in 1982 and moved to East Boldre⁽⁵⁾ in the New Forest where they continued their scientific research using two apple !!e computers running in parallel. In 2003 a scientific meeting⁽⁶⁾ was organised in London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Aldosterone. Sadly Sylvia died just before the meeting and James also missed it as he was being treated for diabetes in the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. He subsequently moved to Harrogate and continued his scientific interests and writing, whilst also taking a keen interest in photography.He died⁽⁷⁾ in Harrogate hospital on 2 Feb 2014 He authored or co-authored over 150 scientific papers during his career.

3) Honours and Awards : James and Sylvia were both elected Fellows of The Royal Society in 1959⁽⁸⁾. They were only the second married couple to become FRSs ( after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert) and the first married couple to be elected on the same day for their joint scientific achievements.

Society for Endocrinology Medal 1969

Tadeus Reichstein Award of the International Endocrine Society 1976

Gregory Pincus Memorial Medal 1977

Ciba Ward, Council for High Blood Pressure 1977

Dale Medal, Society for Endocrinology 1979

Honorary D.Sc. University of Hull 1979

The R Douglas Wright Lecture and Medallion 1989

He served on the editorial boards and councils of several learned societies and from 1960 to 1970 was secretary, committee of arrangements for the Laurentian Hormone Conference

References :

1) Derek A Denton & I MacIntyre, Biogr. Mems Fell. Roy. Soc 52, 379-399 (2006)

2) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

3) A quarter of Unlikely Discoveries Sylvia As Tait and Tames F Tait 2004 Athena Press

4) The Times, 2 June, 1970,

5) Lymington Times March 15 2003

6) Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology Vol 217, Nos 1-2, pp 1-270 March 31 2004. Special Issue Proceedings of the 2003 International Symposium on Aldosterone.

7) The Independent newspaper Obituary 22 Feb 2014 John P Coghlan and Gavin Vinson

8) The Times 20 March 1959