Denis Burkitt was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. After qualifying in medicine from Trinity College, Dublin, he served as a surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1941 to 1946. From 1946 until 1964 he was government surgeon in Uganda. During this period, he discovered a cancer which was caused by a virus, now known universally as 'Burkitt's Lympoma'. He served from 1964 until 1976 on the Medical Research Council External Scientific Staff. He received the highest scientific honours, became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1972, a member of the Academie de Sciences in 1990, and he won the United States Bower Prize in 1993. He was the recipient of honorary degrees from many countries. Because of him, the sciences of nutrition, gastroenterology and epidemiology were revolutionised when he advocated a high fibre diet, the benefits of which he had observed in Africa. From 1976 to 1984 he was Honorary Senior Research Fellow at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School.

Born:	28 February 1911
Died:	23 March 1993