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Donald Nicholson again

Donald Nicholson (16 Sep January 1916 –  12 May 2012) devised the charts of Biochemical cycles which have become a commonplace in the offices of clinical and bioscience staff worldwide.

In the 1950s he was teaching bacterial metabolism to medical students in Leeds. Since 1940, the subject had been expanding fast and students were struggling to master all the new material. Nicholson tried to put together a single chart of metabolic pathways that would provide an overall picture. He drew his first chart in 1955 and got a few copies printed. Colleagues and students were enthusiastic and demand soared. In 1960 he found a small biochemical firm who agreed to print the charts in quantity, using colour to distinguish the different pathways. So far there have been 22 editions and the charts have been republished in many textbooks.

Many medical students felt the diagrams were more detailed than necessary. For them he designed an "Inborn Errors of Metabolism" map, highlighting enzymes known to have links with disease and showing what the disease was in each case.

At the age of 80, Nicholson bought a computer and copied all the information into electronic form. He was much heartened when he went to Oxford for a lecture by the Nobel Prizewinner Professor Hans Krebs and Krebs began the lecture by displaying a Nicholson chart.

Personal life
Donald Elliot Nicholson was born in Leek, Staffordshire, on January 16 1916, a twin and one of three sons of a Methodist minister. Methodist ministers move often and this did not help his education. In 1936 he scraped a chemistry degree at Huddersfield Technical College, having had to retake some exams. This experience gave him a lifetime interest in education and sympathy with undistinguished students.

When he got his degree, Nicholson joined ICI in Huddersfield. There he carried out research on fluorine compounds, and in 1940 gained a PhD. During the Second World War he worked at Boots in Nottingham, developing the large-scale production of the new antibacterial drug sulfanilamide. This drug saved the lives of thousands of wounded servicemen.

After the war, ICI offered him a research fellowship. He used this at Leeds medical school. He then got a post in the bacteriology department, where he did research on the growth requirements of the tubercle bacillus and the chemical nature of diphtheria toxins. When his research fellowship expired he became a lecturer in Bacteriology. He continued to teach for many years after his formal retirement.

Nicholson was appointed as one of only two Special Life Members of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He received an honorary doctorate from Huddersfield University.

For more than twenty years from 1939 Nicholson served as a Methodist lay preacher. In later years he became an active member of the Progressive Christian Network. He also served as a prison visitor.