Murray Barr

Who was Murray Barr?

Murray Llewellyn Barr, OC FRSC FRS was a Canadian physician and medical researcher who discovered with graduate student Ewart George Bertram, in 1948, an important cell structure, the "Barr body".

Born in Belmont, Ontario, he was educated at the University of Western Ontario, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1930, M.D. in 1933, and Master of Science in 1938.

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

In 1968, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1959, he received the Royal Society of Canada's Flavelle Medal. In 1962, he won a Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation Award for his contributions to the understanding of the causes of mental retardation. In 1963, he received the Gairdner Foundation International Award and in 1972 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1998, he was posthumously inducted into Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.