Marjory Stephenson
Marjory Stephenson (born January 24, 1885 in Burwell , Cambridgeshire ; died December 12, 1948 in Cambridge ) was a British biochemist.
Life
Stephenson was the daughter of Robert Stephenson (1847–1929), a farmer, surveyor, and cement factory owner; and his wife Sarah, née Rogers (1848–1925). Her father, who was also active in local politics as a local councilor and justice of the peace, was particularly committed to advancing education. Both grandfathers had been racehorse trainers.
From 1903 Marjory Stephenson studied at Newnham College, where, like her father, she was particularly interested in natural sciences. In 1906 Marjory Stephenson became a college teacher, first at Gloucester County Training College , then at King's College of Household Science in London. In 1912 she was the only woman in the laboratories of the Biochemical Institute at University College London , where she examined lipid metabolism.
The First World War interrupted her scientific career. She participated as a volunteer ( Voluntary Aid Detachment ) in the management of hospital kitchens and field hospitals in France and Thessaloniki . After the war she was awarded a member of the Order of the British Empire and the lower level of the Royal Red Cross for her commitment . The experiences of war made Stephenson a pacifist.
In 1919 she was appointed to the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University, where she worked under Frederick Gowland Hopkins . In 1928, together with Juda H. Quastel and Margaret Whetham, she improved Pasteur's method for extracting enzymes from bacteria. Together with Leonard Hubert Stickland (who discovered the Stickland reaction ), she isolated L-lactate dehydrogenase from coli bacteria in 1928 . In 1931 the two researchers coined the term hydrogenase . In the 1930s she studied the development of bacteria in formic acid and together with Ernest Gale in the field of amino acid metabolism . During this time she also traveled to the USA and the Soviet Union.
On the basis of her basic research, she wrote the standard work Bacterial Metabolism (German: Metabolism of bacteria ), which was published several times between 1930 and 1949. In 1936 she received her scientific doctorate, in 1943 she was appointed to a teaching position at the University of Cambridge. In 1945 she and Kathleen Lonsdale were the first women to be elected to the Royal Society . In 1947 she received the chair for chemical microbiology.
In February 1945 she co-founded the Society for General Microbiology , of which Sir Alexander Fleming became its first president . From 1947 until the end of her life, Marjory Stephenson was the second president of this society; In 1953 the Society donated the Marjory Stephenson Prize, which was initially biennial and now annually, in her honor .
literature
- Soňa Štrbáňová: Holding Hands with Bacteria: The Life and Work of Marjory Stephenson , Springer 2016
Web links
- Literature by and about Marjory Stephenson in the WorldCat bibliographic database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Muriel Robertson: Marjory Stephenson. 1885-1948 biography by the Royal Society
- ↑ a b Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 449.
- ↑ Marjory Stephenson Prize Lecture (Eng.)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stephenson, Marjory |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British biochemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 24, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Burwell , Cambridgeshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 12, 1948 |
| Place of death | Cambridge |