Bill Grant

We have learned, with sadness, of the death of Professor William (Bill) Grant, Emeritus Professor in the former Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation on Friday 2 August 2024.

As an environmental microbiologist, Professor Grant specialised in extreme environments in locations all around the world from Inner Mongolia to various African sites. He was best known for his work on East African soda lake microbiology (including their special halobacteria) but also halobacteria in ancient salt deposits (salt mines, including a couple in the UK) where it looks as if the halobacteria were entombed when the original salt lakes dried out millions of years ago to form the deposit and have been in suspended animation since that time.

In 2015 a paper in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology naming a bacterium, isolated in Japan, in his honour: Halarchaeum grantii. 

Bill’s funeral will be held at the Great Glen crematorium on Friday 30 August at 1.30pm. The wake will be after at the Boboli restaurant in Kibworth Harcourt, Main Street. More details on the career of Professor Bill will follow.