London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Robin Weiss was an influential British virologist whose work helped shape modern understanding of retroviruses including HIV, and virus-related cancers. He made seminal contributions to cancer biology, infectious disease research and public health. He collaborated with scientists and institutions around the world, and mentored many younger scientists who went on to be leading researchers themselves.

Robin studied zoology at University College London before completing a PhD there, and his early research focused on retroviruses and the links between infection and cancer. He was among the scientists who advanced understanding of endogenous retroviruses, showing how viral sequences can become embedded in host DNA and influence biology across generations.

He served first as Director, then Director of Research at the Institute for Cancer Research from 1980-1999, helping to guide a period of institutional renewal while continuing his own research into viral oncology. His laboratory contributed to the discovery of the NRAS oncogene and to wider understanding of how viruses can drive malignant transformation.

With the emergence of HIV/AIDS, Robin’s work took on a new urgency. In 1984, he and colleagues identified CD4 as the receptor used by HIV to enter immune cells, helping explain the virus’s effects on the immune system. He played a central role in early HIV diagnostics, contributing to development of one of the first antibody tests used in the UK for diagnosis and blood screening, and was involved in early studies of neutralising antibodies that informed later vaccine research.

He then returned to UCL as Professor of Viral Oncology, expanding his work on AIDS-related cancers, emerging viruses and antibody technologies.

Amongst many prizes, awards, honorary degrees, and fellowships throughout his career, Robin became an Honorary Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 2003 and lectured on many modules including Epidemiology and Control of Communicable Diseases, Virology, and HIV/AIDS.

Professor Peter Smith at LSHTM said: “Robin was always very easy to approach and to talk to and was deeply intellectual and endlessly curious. I never came away from a conversation with him that I had not enjoyed and usually learned something new. I admired his lack of inhibition in ‘speaking truth to power’.”

Professor Rashida Ferrand at LSHTM added: “One of the most remarkable things about Robin as an educator was how approachable, gracious and generous he was when he taught. You wouldn’t know what an eminent scientist he was - he imparted knowledge with grace, never making one feel less for asking a question - nothing was too basic or unimportant. That marked him out from the many experts.”  

His passing has been recently acknowledged by BBC’s Last Word as well as an obituary in The Guardian.

Robin is survived by his wife, Margaret, their two daughters, Rachel and Helen, and three grandchildren.

For those wish to leave a memoriam, Robin’s preferred charities are Council for At-Risk Academics, Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Institute of Cancer Research.