Christopher Forbes Graham FRS (1940-2025): outstanding developmental biologist and one of a kind

Chris, as he was known universally, died on 22 May at the age of 84. He was a distinguished embryologist and reproductive physiologist whose kindness and erudition inspired many. He was born in Drumelzier in Scotland on 23 September 1940, and attended The King's School Canterbury before being admitted to St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, to read Zoology. He spent his entire career in the university, as undergraduate, research student, and, from 1970 to 2007, as Lecturer and then Professor in the Department of Zoology. For his DPhil degree, he worked on DNA synthesis in Xenopus under the supervision of Sir John Gurdon. Chris then switched to studying early mammalian development, becoming one of the early pioneers during the transition of the subject from being purely descriptive to experimental and analytical. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1981, by which time his research achievements were already widely recognised internationally.