Geoffrey Merton Berlyne was professor of medicine at the State University of New York. He was born in Manchester, the son of Charles Solomon Berlyne, a clothing manufacturer, and Miriam Hannah Berlyne née Rosenthal, the daughter of a watchmaker. He was educated at Manchester Central High School, and then went on to study medicine at Manchester University. He qualified MB ChB with distinctions in medicine, pathology, bacteriology, pharmacology, forensic medicine and physiology.

He held junior and then registrar posts at Manchester Royal Infirmary. From 1961 to 1962 he was a Rockefeller foundation fellow in New York. He returned to Manchester, becoming an honorary consultant physician in 1965. Working in Robert Platt’s [Munk’s Roll, Vol.VII, p.470] team, he helped establish a nephrology unit in Manchester, with renal dialysis.

He was professor of medicine at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, and in 1976 became professor of medicine at the State University of New York, mainly working at the Brooklyn Veterans’ Administration Hospital.

He was editor of Nephron for many years, and wrote many papers and several books, including A course in renal diseases(Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1966).

Outside medicine, he was interested in Oriental languages, comparative religion and photography.

In 1959 he married Ruth Lilian Selbourne. They had three children.