Sandy Geddes

He was able to do this by using X-rays to determine the 3D structures of molecules, as did Watson and Crick, Wilkins and Franklin in their work on DNA.

Dr Geddes, formerly of the School of Biochemistry and Molecular

Biology – and the former Department of Biophysics – at Leeds University, was born at Port Glasgow, his father, Fulton, serving in the RAF (ground crew) at the time.

Before the War Fulton had been a sports journalist on the Daily Worker, and after the war he got a job as a sports reporter on Reynolds News, moving his family to Ilford.

Sandy went to Ilford Boys' Grammar School, and in the Upper Sixth went to joint dancing classes and debates with the Girls' Grammar School where Joanna Saltmarsh was in the Lower Sixth. She knew immediately he was the one for her, and in May, 1964, they were duly married.

From the Grammar School, Sandy Geddes went to King's College, London, and in 1963 moved to Leeds so as to pursue his PhD studies on fibrous proteins. During the course of that work he was the first person to demonstrate the existence of a hitherto unknown structural type, which has proved to be of particular interest in the misfolding of protein molecules implicit in diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Having been awarded his PhD, he joined the university staff as a research assistant, and in 1968 he took up a prestigious European Molecular Biology Organisation Fellowship in Paris, returning to Leeds in 1969 to be a lecturer.

In 1970 he travelled overseas again, now as a Visiting Professor at Indiana University, to work on peptide antibiotics; and it was in the US that he was introduced to the powerful ways of studying crystals which he was able to bring back to Leeds on his return in 1971.

Secrecy in the pharmaceutical industry, for which his research was especially relevant, meant he was unable to publish as freely and frequently as he would have wanted to, but despite that handicap he quickly built an international reputation for the quality and thoroughness of his work.

A grant referee for the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, he was much in demand as a research supervisor, and served as an external examiner for London University.

He was also an active member of a range of professional bodies, including the British Biophysical Society, the British Crystallographic Association, the British Pharmacological Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry, for whom he organised a number of successful conferences, and he was a founder member of the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society.

He participated in the design of devices for displaying 3D structures on a computer screen; this interest in information technology benefited the university, and as a representative of the university on the Board of Governors at Ermysted's Grammar School, Skipton, he helped the school set up its first IT unit.

Sandy Geddes was a rigorous analytical scientist, and a conscientious worker, constantly upgrading and rewriting his lectures.

His university work continued at home, but when Joanna began a part-time MA, he would take their three boys off at the weekends so she could concentrate on her studies.

A stalwart supporter and friend of his university colleagues, he was a lecturer who also made life-long friends of his students, and it was through his Greek students – some now professors at Greek universities – that he came to love Greece.

On his retirement he decided to learn the language, and as well as studying in the UK he took several Greek courses in Ikaria.

Dr Geddes is survived by his mother Margaret, his wife Joanna and their sons James, Joel and Michael.