Douglas Lea

Douglas Edward Lea was an experimental physicist working primarily in the field of radiobiology. He started working at the Cavendish Laboratory in the 1930s, and in time moved from nuclear physics to focus on biology. His influential book, The Actions of Radiation of Living Cells, was published in 1946, the year before he died in a car accident. Lea was a major contributor to the target theory of cell death caused by ionising radiation.

A memorial lecture in his name has been given biennially since 1948. He was a close friend of fellow radiobiology pioneer, Louis Harold Gray.