Nina Wedderburn obituary

Other lives: Authority on how viruses affect the immune system

My mother, Nina Wedderburn, who has died at 91, was an authority on how viruses affect the immune system. At the Royal College of Surgeons, where she became dean of the Hunterian Institute, 1990-93, she led a successful research group investigating the effects of malaria and viruses on the immune system.

Her early work was on how malaria alters the immune system’s ability to control cancer. She then developed a model to understand how viruses can suppress immunity and in particular the Epstein Barr Virus (EBV), linked to a childhood cancer common in Africa. Many of her PhD students and fellows went on to establish successful careers all over the world, and remained lifelong friends.

She was born in London, the oldest of four children of Esther (nee Polianowsky), a physicist and writer, and Myer Salaman, a physician scientist. Nina attended Bedales school in Hampshire, and the Perse school, Cambridge. She studied natural sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge, graduating in 1950, shortly before the university began to award full degrees to women. In 1998 she went back to Cambridge with her old friend Carol Shaw, and they had a lovely day collecting their degrees at last.

It was at Cambridge that she met Bill Wedderburn; they married in 1951 and had three children, Sarah, David and me. They were divorced in 1961.

Moving to London with her children, Nina later restarted her scientific career, part-time at first, at the London hospital, and then successfully completing her PhD at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1969. This was tough. She managed it with determination and the support of her father, himself a scientist. Before long she was working independently, joining the faculty of the Royal College of Surgeons (where she rose to be senior lecturer), developing an international reputation and taking on research students of her own.

Nina was a lifelong member of the Labour party. She was an unfailing source of support to her parents (both of whom lived into their 90s) and to her children, grandchildren, and wider family. She was an avid reader, and loved to go to classical music concerts. In retirement she joined a synagogue and enjoyed classes on Jewish history and philosophy.

She is survived by her children 10 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, two sisters and a brother.

Lucy Wedderburn

The GuardianTramp

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