Michael Abercrombie

Later life

He moved to the Strangeways Research Laboratory at the University of Cambridge to undertake doctoral research. In 1938 was employed at University of Birmingham as a lecturer, while also holding a research fellowship at Queen's College, University of Oxford. At Birmingham he met another lecturer, Minnie Johnson, whom he married on 17 July 1939. He was classified as unfit for military service in the second world war and moved to University of Oxford to work on wound healing and nerve regeneration until 1943, then returned to Birmingham.

In 1947 he and his wife moved to the anatomy and zoology departments at University College London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1958. He finally became director of the Strangeways Research Laboratory at Cambridge from 1970 until his death. Here Abercrombie studied cell population growth and behaviour.

He notably discovered that animal cells moving through tissue culture will halt when they come into contact with another cell of the same type, with the important exception of cancer cells. This discovery led to new interest and research into the dynamics and growth of cancer cells.

He was also involved in popularising science. Particularly successful projects were the co-authored Penguin Dictionary of Biology in 1951 (with co-author C. J. Hickman and others, reaching 11th edition in 2004) and the Penguin New Biology series (1945 - 1960), co-edited with his wife (writing as M. L. Johnson), and from 1953 with botanist Gordon Elliott Fogg. They also wrote articles for New Biology.

He died at home in Cambridge on 28 May 1979.

Family

He married Minnie Louie ("Jane") Johnson in 1939. Together they had one son, Nicholas Abercrombie who became a noted sociologist.