David Maurice Surrey Dane, MRCS CRCP MB Bchir MRCP MRCPath FRCPath FRCP (25 March 1923 – 9 April 1998) was a pre-eminent British pathologist and clinical virologist known for his pioneering work in infectious diseases including poliomyelitis and the early investigations into the efficacy of a number of vaccines.

David Maurice Surrey Dane was the son of William Surrey Dane (1892–1978), C.B.E., M.C., vice-chairman and managerial consultant of Odhams Press and chairman/ president of several hospital boards, including Great Ormond Street Hospital (1957–67), chairman of the Daily Herald newspaper (1949–60), and a member of the General Advisory Council of the BBC (1956–62),[2][3] and his wife Dorothy Mary, daughter of Rev.

[6] He returned to the UK to read Natural Sciences at Clare College, Cambridge and later undertook his clinical medical training at St Thomas' Hospital, London.

It was inevitable that as a field virologist he would also become involved in the avian/human zoonosis of psittacosis work led by John Miles, head of the Medical Research Division in the early 1950s.

[9] On returning to the UK, in 1955, Dane was appointed lecturer in microbiology at Queen's University Belfast,[7] where he worked with Professor George Dick on the recently developed attenuate and killed poliovirus vaccines.

Together with Dr Duncan Catterall, head of the sexually transmitted disease clinic in James Pringle House at Middlesex Hospital, Dane quickly demonstrated the usefulness of the electron microscope for the rapid diagnosis of herpes simplex virus infection (HSV).

[13] Close collaborations with two senior colleagues in the haematology field, James Wallace "Jimmie" Stewart, Professor of Haematology at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School (MHMS), and Tom Cleghorn, director of the North London Blood Transfusion Centre (NLBTC) at Edgware led to ground-breaking work in the emerging field of transfusion transmitted infection and particularly that of post-transfusion hepatitis.

[17] Those who trained with him recall with wry amusement the irritation if he was to hear anyone referring to the 42 nm form by its eponymous title, even if abbreviated to "DP".

Dane's determination to improve the accuracy of detecting the hepatitis B surface antigen protein, HBsAg, and his keen interest in blood transfusion led him to accept an honorary consultancy at NLBTC which he continued to hold after his retirement in 1982, until his death.

His colleague Sam Cameron produced the iodinated label and with John Barabara of NLBTC, merged this with microplate technology and multichannel gamma counters.

Methods for selecting high-titre antimicrobial antibodies in donors, investigation and surveillance of post transfusion infections became established routine activities.