Professor Denis Noble is an eminent British biologist known for his work across the entire field of the subject. After leaving Emanuel, Professor NobIe continued his education at UCL where he moved into research around physiology. Using the discovery of the two main potassium ion channels in the heart, he became the first person to develop a mathematical model of cardiac cells alongside his supervisor Otto Hunter. This involved calculating integrals on the Ferrari Mercury computer, which was both slow, expensive and in high demand at the time. However, he eventually published his research in the Nature journal in 1960 at age 24, leading to him receiving the prestigious Lomonosov medal for this research well over half a century later in 2022. In the following years, this model was developed by various scientists and used as the basis for more than 100 cardiac cell models still in use today.
Professor Noble has also been an integral member of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS). As secretary general from 1993-2001, he helped to launch the Physiome project which aims ‘to provide a quantitative description of physiological dynamics and functional behavior of the intact organism.’ They have modelled many body cells, such as skeletal muscle cells which have been used to help muscle cramp relief. Noble’s other major area of work is in evolutionary biology, where he has pioneered systems biology, a field which involves using computational analysis of complex biological systems interacting, approaching research in a large-scale holistic way. Due to his work in this area, Professor Noble was elected president of the IUPS in 2009 and again in 2013.
To this day, he continues to give lectures on his fascinating research and personal experience, even debating Richard Dawkins on the role of genetics in evolution in 2022. On top of this, Professor Noble has written many books; the most well-known ones include Dance to the Tune of Life and The Music of Life. If you hadn’t spotted the theme, Professor Noble is a keen musician, as well as a linguist speaking many languages and a magician, though sadly we weren’t fortunate enough to witness a live performance.
Professor Noble was extremely fond of his time at Emanuel, and joyfully reminisced about his childhood here. This was evident from his tour around the school, where he was amazed at how much the school’s facilities had grown and developed after he had left. He recalled how the school lab used to be one lecture hall, of which he had shown a photo of to the Sixth Form during his assembly, whilst marvelling the several departmental labs now allocated to individual sciences. He was, however, glad to find preserved parts of the school that had outlasted his tenure here; such as the Physics staircase, which he recognised as the same ones he had climbed when he was younger.
In conversation, Professor Noble shared about how teachers in his early education had left an impact on him, particularly his Maths and Physics teacher, whom he had remembered by name and repeatedly praised. He laughed at how he is certain his former Languages teacher would be proud of him and fail to believe that he is now able to deliver his presentations in French, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Occitan.
After the tour, he was shown to the Marquand Room in the Library, where he attended a Lower Sixth Journal Club presentation on the workings of Venus flytraps. Here, whilst contributing with information about a study that had been performed 12 years ago with Venus flytraps, he noticed a portrait of David Marquand, and recalled an amusing story of how he had performed magic at David and Richard Marquand’s joint birthday party.
Following this, Dennis presented to the Sixth Form, both about his time at Emanuel and his journey to being awarded with the Lomonosov Medal. He detailed the laborious process leading to the development mathematical model of the heart- working on a large computer from 2 to 4am for 4 months- and had brought along the book he had used to calculate integrals. His talk was certainly an interesting one, starting with him belting out an old Emanuelian song to describing his book writing process, and was received well by the Sixth Form, who had curated questions to ask him in a panel style interview.
All in all, Professor Noble greatly enjoyed his visit to Emanuel and pupils were in turn able to benefit from hearing about the very interesting life of a highly respected, inspiring Biologist.
Ben & Rebecca, Year 12