Jenny P. Glusker

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Jenny Pickworth Glusker (born June 28, 1931 in Birmingham ) is a British biochemist and crystallographer . She has been with the Fox Chase Cancer Center , a national cancer research institute in the United States , since 1956 . She is also an associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania .

Life

Jenny Pickworth was born in Birmingham, England on June 28, 1931 , and was the eldest of three siblings. Her parents were both doctors. Her father, Frederick Alfred Pickworth, studied chemistry, but after having worked for the drug company Burroughs Wellcome & Company for a few years, he studied medicine and then did research in the field of neurology in Birmingham . Her mother, Jane Wylie Stocks, was a native of Scotland , had studied medicine in Glasgow and worked in Dublin in the 1920s . She later got a job in Birmingham, where she married Frederick Alfred Pickworth. She then raised the three children and only worked occasionally.

During her school days, Jenny P. Glusker became enthusiastic about chemistry at an early age, mainly through her chemistry teacher and her mother's textbooks. But her parents wanted her to study medicine. She agreed with her father that she at the Medical School of the University of Birmingham is when at Somerville College of the University of Oxford will be rejected. She successfully passed her entrance examination in Oxford with Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin , under which she then obtained her bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1953 and later her doctorate . Until the end of 1955 she was involved in the X-ray structure analysis of the Corrin ring of vitamin B12 , for whose overall structure analysis Hodgkins received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 ; Glusker was awarded his doctorate in 1957.

During her undergraduate studies, she met the American and future husband Donald L. Glusker, who was in Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and was also a chemist. They married in the United States in 1955 and together were post-graduate students at the California Institute of Technology , where Jenny P. Glusker worked in Linus Pauling's laboratory . In 1956 she moved with her husband to Philadelphia , where, on the advice of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, she went to the Institute for Cancer Research ICR) (to Arthur Lindo Patterson (now Fox Chase Cancer Center ). She initially only worked part-time to raise her three children. She became a faculty member at the ICR after Patterson's death in 1966. She was a Senior Member (Full Professor) until 2003 and is now Professor Emerita. She has also been Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania since 1980 .

Jenny P. Glusker initially investigated the structure of smaller molecules of the citric acid cycle at the ICR , in particular the aconitase- catalyzed citrates , and their conformation as a ligand on iron atoms of the iron-sulfur cluster of aconitase, which led to a better understanding of the three-dimensional functioning of the enzymes ( ferrous-wheel mechanism) . Her laboratory later devoted herself to crystallographic analyzes of anti-tumor agents and determined, among other things, the structure and conformation of estramustine and acridine derivatives . Furthermore were carcinogens such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons tested as well as the structure of the enzyme xylose isomerase .

Awards (selection)

Works (selection)

  • With Kenneth N. Trueblood: Crystal Structure Analysis: A Primer. (1st edition 1972, 2nd edition 1985) 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2010, ISBN 978-0199576340 .
  • With Dan McLachlan (Ed.): Crystallography in North America. American Crystallographic Association, New York 1983, ISBN 978-0937140079 .
  • With Mitchell Lewis, Miriam Rossi: Crystal Structure Analysis for Chemists and Biologists. VCH, New York 1994, ISBN 978-0895732736 .

literature

  • Elizabeth H. Oakes: Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2007, ISBN 978-1438118826 , p. 276 f ( online ).
  • Tiffany K. Wayne: American Women of Science Since 1900 (Vol.1: Essays AH). ABC-Clio, 2011, ISBN 978-1598841589 , p. 435 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Elizabeth H. Oakes: Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2007, p. 276 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d Memoir: Jenny Pickworth Glusker. ACA History, American Crystallographic Association. Retrieved August 11, 2014.
  3. ↑ Curriculum Vitae: Jenny Pickworth Glusker. American Crystallographic Association. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
  4. ^ A History of Award Winners. ( February 1, 2018 memento on the Internet Archive ) American Crystallographic Association. Retrieved August 11, 2014.
  5. ^ The John Scott Award Recipients. Eugene Garfield Webpage, Member of the John Scott Award Advisory Committee. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Glusker, Jenny P.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Glusker, Jenny Pickworth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British biochemist and crystallographer
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Birmingham