In memoriam Geoffrey W. Grigg (1926-2008).

GEOFFREY Grigg was recognized as a scientist with very wide interests and exceptional ability to exploit opportunities in both basic research and biotechnology. His long scientific career stretched from the early postwar dominance of microbial genetics to the sequencing of the human genome and beyond. If there was a connecting thread or theme in his work it was undoubtedly DNA but he also made a very significant discovery in cell biology before his first research in genetics. With Alan Hodge he studied the structure of the sperm tails of chicken spermatozoa. They discovered the 9 + 2 structure of the flagellum and published this in 1949, only a year after he obtained his first degree at Melbourne University in Australia (Grigg and Hodge 1949). This work went largely unrecognized and much later Irene Manton claimed priority in making the same discovery. In 1993, however, Pickett-Heaps and Martin put the record straight (Picket-Heaps and Martin l993; and see Grigg 1991).