Barbara Wharton Low

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Barbara Wharton Low (born March 23, 1920 in Lancaster , † January 10, 2019 in Bronx , New York City ) was a British - American biochemist and biophysicist . She was a professor at Columbia University and dealt primarily with the structural analysis of organic compounds, especially proteins .

Career

Barbara Wharton Low received her academic training at Somerville College ( University of Oxford ), where she received her Bachelor's (1942) and Master's (1946) and then a Ph.D. in chemistry doctorate was. She subsequently emigrated to the United States and in 1948 got a job as a research assistant at Harvard University , where she worked at the Harvard Medical School and at the same time for the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry . Two years later she was promoted to assistant professor at Harvard, before she accepted the call to Columbia University in 1956 , where she initially held the same position. In 1966 Low received a full professorship at Columbia, which she held for 24 years, most recently under the title Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics . In addition, during this time she worked several times as a visiting professor, for example at the University of Strasbourg , the University of Tōhoku and the Chinese and Soviet Academy of Sciences . In 1990 Low retired , but still gave occasional lectures.

Scientific work

Low was mainly concerned with the structural analysis of organic compounds, especially proteins , but also penicillins or neurotoxins , such as derivatives of curare . A special focus of her work was the X-ray structure analysis of protein crystals , in which she used new methods such as polaroid photography. In addition, she dealt with interactions between proteins and the effect of curare on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors .

Low was a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Institute of Physics , the Biophysical Society , the American Crystallographic Association, and the International Society on Toxinology . She was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1953.

Personal

Low had been married to Metchie Budka (1917–1995), a biochemist and Slavist of Polish descent, whom she had met at Harvard , since 1950 .

literature

  • Martha J. Bailey: American Women in Science: 1950 to the Present. ABC-CLIO , 1998, p. 241.
  • Kalte, Nemeh & Schusterbauer: American Men & Women of Science. 22nd Edition, Volume 4 (J-L), Thomson Gale, 2005, p. 927.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sam Roberts: Barbara Low, Whose Research Identified the Shape of Penicillin, Dies at 98 . In: The New York Times . March 13, 2019, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 14, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter L. (PDF; 1.1 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved December 15, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Low, Barbara Wharton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Low, Barbara W .; Low Budka, Barbara Wharton; Low Budka, Barbara W .; Low-Budka, Barbara W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American biochemist and biophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Lancaster , UK
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 2019
Place of death Bronx , New York City