Sir Ralph Kohn FRS[2] FMedSci FBPhS (9 December 1927 – 11 November 2016)[1] was a British medical scientist, recipient of the Queen's Award for Export Achievement for his work in the pharmaceutical industry.

His father, Marcus Kohn, ran a successful textile business, and the family occupied a large, comfortable house in the city centre.

After completing his PhD, Sir Ralph pursued post-doctoral studies in Rome -- at the Istituto Superior di Sanita in Rome -- where he undertook three years of research into diabetes with the Nobel prizewinner Sir Ernst Chain, the co-discoverer of penicillin, and Professor Daniel Bovet, who would win the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

He published several joint papers with both men and then spent a further year as a post-doctoral fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York with the pharmacologist Alfred Gilman.

Kohn took an active role in musical administration, initiating the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition and serving on the board of curators of the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig, among other things.

After Kohn's death, the original manuscript of Bach's cantata Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein, BWV 128 was accepted in lieu of inheritance tax by British Government from his family's estate and allocated to the Bodleian Library in 2024.

In 2011 he was awarded the Medal of Honour of the City of Leipzig for his contribution to promoting Bach scholarship and performance, and in 2014 the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

[7] Sir Ralph married Zahava Kanarek in 1963 in Amsterdam; she was a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and, in later years, talked of her family's experiences of the Holocaust to school children around the United Kingdom to promote tolerance and understanding.

Ralph’s Jewish heritage was important to him and, until the end of his life he made a point of meeting an eminent London rabbi twice a week to study the Talmud.