Robert Gerard (Gerry) Wake was born at Wangi Wangi, a town on the shore of Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, on 8 August 1933. He died from the complications of Parkinson Disease in Sydney on 26 January 2020. Wake had a long and distinguished academic career in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Sydney, spanning 1950—with a two-year postdoctoral period and various study leaves—to 1999. His association began as an undergraduate, progressing to MSc (1956) and PhD (1958) and an appointment as lecturer in 1961, and a professorship in 1977. He is internationally renowned for work on the physical biochemistry of the transformation of the milk protein κ-casein by the enzyme rennin; and what was to become his major career focus, the molecular biology of bacterial DNA replication; having been the first to show that the chromosome in Bacillus subtilis (the hay bacterium) is circular. This was only the second bacterium for this general characteristic of bacterial genomes to be discovered. Furthermore, and against conventional wisdom, he demonstrated that replication of the B. subtilis circular chromosome is bidirectional involving two replication forks moving away from a common origin. Wake was a dedicated educator at the undergraduate level and led by example with excellent postgraduate guidance. He also made major contributions to academic governance at the University of Sydney, and more broadly to science in Australia, through influential roles in the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Australian Research Council, and the Australian Academy of Science.
This memoir was originally published in Historical Records of Australian Science, vol.36, 2024. It was written by Ronald J. Hill, Richard I. Christopherson and Philip W. Kuchel.
© 2025 Australian Academy of Science
