A Friend Has a Birth­day

by Elio

Robert Mur­ray, one of the most stead­fast friends of this blog, will soon be hon­ored on his 88th birth­day by an ho­norary de­gree from McGill Uni­ver­sity.
 

Robert G. E. Mur­ray

A pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus at the Uni­ver­sity of West­ern On­tario in Lon­don, On­tario, Prof. Mur­ray is one of Canada's most dis­tin­guished mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists, hav­ing played a stel­lar role in set­ting the foun­da­tion for the mod­ern under­standing of bac­te­r­ial cells and mi­cro­bial tax­on­omy. He con­tin­ues to fol­low in the foot­steps of his fa­ther, E. G. D. Mur­ray, an­other em­i­nent mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist who was award­ed this same honor by the same in­sti­tu­tion. No stranger to hon­ors, Prof. Mur­ray is an of­fi­cer of the Or­der of Canada, the holder of sev­eral other hon­orary de­grees, and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety for Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. His own in­sti­tu­tion has es­tab­lished the R. G. E. Mur­ray An­nual Lec­ture­ship, held since 1999.

Bob's light touch is re­vealed in this re­cent com­mu­niqué: "My 'ecos­phere' closed sys­tem with al­gae, salt wa­ter, and brine shrimp will be 8 years old, and three shrimp are still alive in it. I won­der what the bac­te­ria are that feed them." May he live to see his "ecos­phere" thrive for many years to come.