Sir John Gerald Patrick Sissons (28 June 1945 – 25 September 2016) was an English physician, specialising in nephrology and virology, focusing on

cytomegalovirus ''Cytomegalovirus'' (''CMV'') (from ''cyto-'' 'cell' via Greek - 'container' + 'big, megalo-' + -''virus'' via Latin 'poison') is a genus of viruses in the order ''Herpesvirales'', in the family ''Herpesviridae'', in the subfamily ''Betaherpe ...

. He was a FRCP,

FRCPath The Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) is a professional membership organisation. Its main function is the overseeing of postgraduate training, and its Fellowship Examination (FRCPath) is recognised as the standard assessment of fitness to pr ...

, FMedSci and

Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge The Regius Professorship of Physic is one of the oldest professorships at the University of Cambridge, founded by Henry VIII in 1540. "Physic" is an old word for medicine (and the root of the word physician),'' not physics Physics is the ...

Biography

Patrick Sissons was born in

Hessle Hessle () is a town, civil parish and electoral ward in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, west of Kingston upon Hull city centre. Geographically it is part of a larger urban area consisting of the city of Kingston upon Hull, the town of ...

, East Riding of Yorkshire and attended Ilkley and

Felsted School (Keep your Faith) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Chris Townsend , r_head_l ...

. He studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London. After graduation, he continued there, specialising in nephrology, studying immune-mediated kidney diseases. His clinical training was at the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in th ...

Career

Sissons won an NIH

Fogarty Fogarty is a surname of Irish origin. The name Fogarty in Ireland is derived from the native Irish Ó Fogartaigh Sept who were located in County Tipperary where the name is still very prevalent to this very day. The barony of Eliogarty that sti ...

Fellowship and moved to the

Scripps Research Institute Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is a nonprofit American medical research facility that focuses on research and education in the biomedical sciences. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the institu ...

in San Diego for 3 years. He returned to London and continued at

Hammersmith Hospital Hammersmith Hospital, formerly the Military Orthopaedic Hospital, and later the Special Surgical Hospital, is a major teaching hospital in White City, West London. It is part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in the London Borough of H ...

, working with

Keith Peters (physician) Sir David Keith Peters (born 26 July 1938, in Baglan, Glamorgan) is a retired Welsh physician and academic. He was Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge from 1987 to 2005, where he was also head of the School of Clinical ...

on the virology research side and Jonathan Cohen, establishing a clinical infectious diseases service. He began working on

during the late 1970s and 1980s with John Sinclair focusing on virus latency and reactivation in humans, which had been done in animal models only.

Leszek Borysiewicz Sir Leszek Krzysztof Borysiewicz (born 13 April 1951) is a British professor, immunologist and scientific administrator. He served as the 345th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, his term of office (a maximum of seven years) star ...

was his PhD student. In 1987, he moved to the University of Cambridge, helped develop the Faculty of Clinical Medicine, connecting it with the

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) is a research institute in Cambridge, England, involved in the revolution in molecular biology which occurred in the 1950–60s. Since then it has remained a major medical r ...

and

Addenbrooke's Hospital Addenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned large teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, England, with strong affiliations to the University of Cambridge. Addenbrooke's Hospital is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campu ...

, helped to develop the Centre for Clinical Investigation, the Institute of Metabolic Science and the Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and is said to have convinced

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includin ...

to move its research to Cambridge. In 2005, Sissons became

after Peters retired, until his own retirement in 2012. He died in September 2016 from complications of Parkinson's disease.

References

1945 births 2016 deaths Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Knights Bachelor Fellows of Darwin College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal College of Pathologists Regius Professors of Physic (Cambridge) {{UK-academic-stub