Daniel Turnberg

Daniel Turnberg was a leading young researcher on renal disease at the Royal Free Hospital. He was researching the immunological mechanisms underlying kidney disease, and his particular interest was that seen in HIV nephropathy and Sjögren's syndrome. His published research was on the immunology of adriamycin nephropathy, the role of complement in immunological glomerulonephritis, ischaemia-reperfusion injury, and nephrotoxic nephritis. He was the author of review papers on the regulation of the complement system and its role in glomerulonephritis. He had plans to work on AIDS in Africa.

He was regarded by colleagues and senior staff as an exemplary scientist and clinician, whose empathy with patients and bedside manner was a model of good doctoring.

Daniel was born in Manchester and educated at North Cheshire Jewish School and at Cheadle Hulme School. At Leeds Medical School he took an intercalated BSc in psychology.

After qualifying in 1994 he did his house jobs in Bradford and Wakefield, following this by six months as a senior house officer in the accident and emergency department at University College Hospital, London, and two years in various posts at Hemel Hempstead Hospital, where he was particularly happy. From there he went to St Helier and St George's Hospitals as senior house officer and registrar in renal medicine. He then spent two years in renal medicine on the north London rotation at the Royal Free and North Middlesex hospitals.

A National Kidney Research Fund fellowship with Mark Walport and Marina Botto enabled him to take his PhD. He went back to the Royal Free, which wanted him badly enough to offer him a choice of two jobs.

Daniel was the son of Lord Turnberg, a former president of the Royal College of Physicians and now a Labour peer. He was shy as a child, but blossomed and became extravert during his teens, when he acquired and kept a wide circle of friends. He was modest and unassuming and had a great sense of fun, and did many acts of kindness to patients, colleagues, and friends. He was a voracious reader and keen sportsman, particularly mountain biking, rock and ice climbing, and playing squash.

On the day before he left for a cycling holiday in Malawi he spent three hours successfully persuading the family of a terminally ill patient to take their relative home. On the holiday, with two friends and two other people, he took a trip in a light aircraft to a game reserve. The plane crashed, killing the pilot and all passengers. Hundreds gathered at Bushey cemetery for the funeral service.

Tributes to Dan have poured in to his family and colleagues. They have spoken of his curiosity, enthusiasm, sense of fun, kindness, humanitarian outlook, supportiveness to colleagues, and the way he always had time for people.

Mark Walport, head of the Wellcome Trust and his former boss at Hammersmith, spoke of his “good and gentle nature.” Stephen Powis, his professor at the Royal Free, said he that as well as being highly respected, he was “much loved as an individual because he was kind, compassionate, fun to be with, and enthusiastic about everything life had to offer.”

Dr Andrew Frankel, consultant nephrologist at the Hammersmith, said “Daniel was one of the most gentle, expert, and brightest of the specialist registrars that we have had in our unit over the years. He was universally liked, and his opinions universally respected.”

Professor Paul Sweny of the Royal Free Hospital wrote, “His smile and his charm brightened everyone's day. He was a doctor of huge enthusiasm and willingness to always do that little bit more. He was up there with the brightest and best that we have had through the unit. He was expected to shine and become a nephrology star.”

The post that Daniel occupied is to be renamed the Daniel Turnberg lectureship in nephrology. His former colleagues at the Hammersmith and Royal Free are organising a scientific meeting in his honour and focused on his areas of interest.

Daniel Turnberg, researcher in nephrology Royal Free Hospital, London (b 20 February 1970; q Leeds 1994; BSc, PhD), died in a plane crash in Malawi on 16 June 2007.