Werner Ulrich Jacobson was the Sir Halley Stewart professor of medical research at Cambridge. He was born in Berlin, the son of Otto Jacobson, a physician, and Paula Jacobson. He was educated at Momsen Classical High School in Berlin, and then went to Heidelberg University, gaining his MD in 1930. He held junior posts in Heidelberg and in Bonn.

In 1933 he went to the UK, to an appointment at the Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge, where he remained until 1981. Between 1948 and 1972 he also held appointments at the Children’s Hospital Boston and at Howard Medical School, Washington DC. From 1979 he was the Sir Halley Stewart chair of medical research and, from 1981, a senior research associate at the department of haematological medicine at Cambridge University and a member of the department of paediatrics.

From 1982 he was an associate trustee of the Sir Halley Stewart Trust.

He married Gertrude Elena Jacobson, a teacher, in 1934. She died in 1969. They had no children.

RCP editor