[1] As a child he bred canaries, winning prizes with them at shows;[1][3] Malcolm Peaker suggests this might have contributed to his asthma.

[1][2] In 1924, after being awarded a Travelling Scholarship, he moved to Cambridge to study for a PhD at the Molteno Institute for Research in Parasitology under the supervision of George H. F. Nuttall;[1][2][4] he spent the rest of his career there.

[1] In 1949, Tate was appointed Reader in Parasitology,[5] and in 1953, succeeded David Keilin as the director of the Molteno Institute, remaining in the position until his retirement in September 1968.

[1] He was interested in natural history, and for three decades, visited Kettlewell in the Yorkshire Dales during the summer vacation, with the biochemist Malcolm Dixon and his sister, Lilian Tate.

The finding undermined the long-held view that Plasmodium sporozoites infected red blood cells directly, and was later replicated in primates by Henry Shortt and Cyril Garnham.