Wolf Prize in Agriculture (1157 Pages)

43

Sir Kenneth Blaxter

Rowett Research Institute

Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom

k

1979 — for his fundamental contributions

to the science and practice of ruminant

nutrition and livestock production.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Sir Kenneth was trained in agricultural science at the University of Reading and in

1939 he joined the staff of the National Institute for Research in Dairying to work

on aspects of the nutrition of cattle. After a period in the Armed Services he

returned to Reading and later moved to the Central Veterinary Laboratory at

Weybridge. Prom there, after a period spent working with the late Dr H.H. Mitchell

at the University of Illinois, he was appointed Head of the Nutrition Department

of the Hannah Research Institute, Ayr, where he remained for 17 years until, in

1995, he was appointed Director of the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen.

Sir Kenneth has made outstanding contributions to knowledge of nutrition,

particularly ruminant nutrition. In his earlier days he did important work on the

nutritive value of feeds for dairy cattle, on protein metabolism and on the protein

requirements of  cattle. In the fields of  endocrinology he tackled the then

controversial subject of  iodinated proteins. Some of  the work on protein

requirements formed part of an extensive series of experiments on the metabolism

and nutritional needs of the very young calf and its relation to maternal feeding

which Sir Kenneth began soon after going to the Hannah Research Institute in

1948. This work is so outstanding in its originality and elegance that it is now

regarded as classic; it provided a basis for the development of systems of artificial

rearing of  calves with specially formulated diets which have revolutionized

commercial calf production.

1919–1991

03_1979 Blaxter.p65

06-Mar-09, 6:50 PM

43

---

44

Wolf Prize in Agriculture

These researches on calf  nutrition led to an important series of original

investigations on muscular dystrophy in calves and its relation to dietary vitamin

E. The fundamentals of the subject were studied by Sir Kenneth at the Hannah

Institute, and in collaboration with a Veterinary Investigation Officer in the North

of Scotland he initiated large-scale field trials which showed the value of vitamin

E, and selenium, in preventing the occurrence of  muscular dystrophy, which at

that time was accounting for a high proportion of calf mortality, in some northern

areas of  the country. During this period Sir Kenneth also studied magnesium

metabolism in cattle and was the first to produce an experimental magnesium

deficiency and to demonstrate that the disease in the field is a deficiency state.

The main work on which Sir Kenneth has latterly been engaged is the energy

metabolism of sheep and cattle. He has made an extensive study of the energy

requirements of  these animals for growth and maintenance and for the production

of  milk, meat and wool, and of the ability of  different feeds and different

environments to meet these requirements. This subject is of the greatest importance,

but because of the many difficulties involved in its study it had been neglected for

many years. It had become evident that the subject should be thoroughly

reinvestigated with modern equipment and in the light of modern knowledge, and.

this task Sir Kenneth undertook. He designed and built a series of very efficient

respiration chambers for animals of various sizes, from goats and. sheep up to

adult cows and steers, his largest chamber involving a completely new conception

in calorimetric technique.

Sir Kenneth’s work on the energy metabolism and requirements of farm animals

has culminated in a new system for expressing the energy requirements of

ruminants and for the evaluation of  ruminant feeds, in which the energy

requirements of the animal are expressed in terms of units of “metabolizable

energy” (ME). This system has the great merit of expressing nutritive requirements

in terms of a unit by which feeds can be readily assayed and it has been adopted as

the basis of feeding standards in the UK and in many other countries. That this

work is well-known is due in part to Sir Kenneth’s support of international vehicles

of  communication, particularly the conferences of  the European and World

Associations of Animal Production.

Besides being the foremost authority in the United Kingdom, and probably in

the world, on the energy metabolism and energy requirements of  ruminants, Sir

Kenneth now occupies a pre-eminent international position in nutritional science;

he is a former Chairman of the British National Committee for Nutritional Sciences

of the Royal Society, and was a member of Commission VI of the International

Union of Nutritional Sciences.

More specifically in the field of human nutrition Sir Kenneth has been a

member of the UK Joint Agricultural Research Council/Medical Research Council

Committee on Food and Nutrition and Chairman of its Working Party on Energy

Foods for Man. He was also a member of the UN Committee on Proteins.

03_1979 Blaxter.p65

06-Mar-09, 6:50 PM

44

---

Sir Kenneth Blaxter

45

His total concern with the effectiveness of animal production as a source of

human food is reflected in a number of  very significant papers Relative efficiencies

of farm animals in using crops and by-products in production of foods, World

Conference on Animal Production, Maryland 1969; Approaches to the problem of

augmentation of animal protein food sources in Asia, Asian Congress of Nutrition,

Hyderabad 1972; Nutrients required for animal production as related to the world

food supply, Centennial Symposium, Guelph 1975; which demonstrate his

determination that the scientific resources of his chosen field shall be directed to

the betterment of mankind and the enhancement of the brotherhood of the peoples

of the world.

Through each Annual Report of Sir Kenneth’s Institute attention is drawn to

the part played in the training of visiting research workers, many of them from

overseas, and bringing them together into a scientific and social fraternity. The

Institute also houses the Commonwealth Bureau of Nutrition of which Sir Kenneth

is Chairman and Consultant Director. The Bureau, which provides an information

service for research workers in human and animal nutrition, is organized by

nations of the British Commonwealth and it is of great value not only to the

Commonwealth, but throughout the world.

CURRICULUM VITAE

A

CADEMIC

  T

RAINING

:

1930-1935 - City of Norwich School

1936-1939 - University of Reading

A

CADEMIC

  T

TRAINING

:

1939 - B.Sc. (Agric.) University of Reading

1939 - N.D.A. (Hons.)

1944 - Ph.D. University University of  Reading

1952 - D.Sc. University of Reading

1974 - D.Sc. (honoris causa) Queen’s University, Belfast

1975 - D.Sc. Agr. (honoris causa) University, Norway

1977 - D.Sc. Agr. (honoris causa) University of Leeds

P

ROFESSIONAL

  Q

UALIFICATIONS

:

1962 - Fellowship of  Royal Society of Arts (F.R.S.A.)

1963 - Fellowship of Institute of Biology (F. Inst. Biol.)

1964 - Fellowship of  Royal Agricultural Society of England (F.R.Agr.E.)

1965 - Fellowship of Royal Society of  Edinburgh (F.R.S.E.)

1967 - Fellowship of  Royal Society (F.R.S.)

1970 - Foreign Member of  the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences (USSR)

03_1979 Blaxter.p65

06-Mar-09, 6:50 PM

45

---