Rodney Warren Rickards 1934–2007

Abstract

Rod Rickards graduated with first class honours from the University of Sydney in 1955 and began his academic career at the University of Manchester in close association with Arthur Birch. In 1966 he returned to Australia to a foundation appointment in the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University, where he spent the remainder of his career. His research was primarily concerned with the organic and biological chemistry of compounds of medical, biological, agricultural and veterinary importance, and was characterized by an integration of organic synthesis, biomimetic synthesis, structural and stereochemical studies, and biosynthetic studies using isotopically labelled precursors in vivo. His interests ranged widely and included antibiotics, regulatory factors that initiate antibiotic production and control cell differentiation and sexuality in microorganisms, elicitors that communicate between bacteria and plants, mammalian hormones of the prostaglandin group that control many aspects of human physiology, juvenile hormones, which mediate the development and reproductive physiology of higher dipteran insects and the therapeutically active components of Cannabis resin.