Iain Campbell (biophysicist)
Iain Donald Campbell (born April 24, 1941 in Blackford (Perth and Kinross) , † March 5, 2014 ) was a Scottish biochemist and biophysicist. He taught at Oxford University , where he was Professor of Structural Biology .
Campbell went to school in Perth and studied at the University of St. Andrews with a degree in physics in 1963 and a doctorate in physics with Dirk Blij. He was then briefly at the University of Bradford and then at the Laboratory for Theoretical and Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford with Rex Edward Richards . In 1987 he became a Fellow of St. John's College, in 1992 professor of structural biology and in 2009 he was retired.
He was a pioneer in the development and application of NMR to investigate processes in the living cell (he made in the 1970s, one of the first proton NMR recordings of processes in living cells) and turned NMR the work of Nobel laureate Kurt Wüthrich following in the 1980s to the elucidation of protein structures. In 1987 he clarified the structure of the Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF). This controls the growth and division of cells via an associated receptor, the malfunction of which can trigger cancer. Chemotherapeutic agents against certain types of cancer therefore target the EGF and its receptor, for which the knowledge of its exact structure was of crucial importance.
After his success with EGF, he turned from physics (development of NMR techniques) to biology and became an expert in cell migration (important for example in developmental biology, the immune system and wound healing) and cell adhesion. This research also plays a role in understanding cancer.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1995) and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization . He was an Honorary Doctor of Lund, St Andrews and Portsmouth Universities and a 2006 Croonian Lecturer .
In 1982 he received the Trade and Industry Education in Partnership with Industry Award .
In 1967 he married Karin Wehle, a German student teacher who he met in St. Andrews and with whom he had a son and two daughters.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Campbell, Iain Donald (1941-2014), structural biologist - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In: oxforddnb.com. Retrieved November 17, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Campbell, Iain |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Campbell, Iain Donald (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish biochemist and biophysicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 24, 1941 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Blackford (Perth and Kinross) |
| DATE OF DEATH | 5th March 2014 |