Edmond Fischer was yesterday elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. In 1955, Eddy Fischer and his colleague Edwin (Ed) Krebs discovered the first example of enzyme regulation by reversible phosphorylation when they found that glycogen phosphorylase was activated by phosphorylation and deactivated by dephosphorylation. We now know that almost all intracellular processes are controlled by reversible phosphorylation and that abnormalities in this process are a cause of consequence of many diseases. For this reason protein kinases, which catalyse the attachment of phosphate to proteins, have become the pharmaceutical industry's most important class of drug target. The importance of their discovery was recognised in 1992 when Eddy Fischer and Ed Krebs received the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.

'The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge' known simply as The Royal Society is the world's oldest National Academy of Sciences. It was founded in 1660 by about 12 scientists and granted a Royal Charter by King James 2nd. 44 scientists who are citizens of the UK and British Commonwealth and up to six Foreign Members are elected each year from all branches of sciences. The aim of the Royal Society is to promote excellence in science and Fellows elected in the past include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, Dorothy Hodgkin, Francis Crick, James Watson and Stephen Hawking. There are currently more than 60 Nobel Laureates amongst the Society's 1314 Fellows and Foreign Members.