Pauline Harrison

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Pauline May Harrison
Born (1926-08-24) 24 August 1926 (age 97)
Alma materSomerville College, Oxford
Known forProtein crystallography of ferritin
SpouseRoyden Harrison
AwardsCBE, DSc
Scientific career
FieldsBiology, crystallography
InstitutionsUniversity of Sheffield
Thesis X-Ray crystallographic studies in some peptides and proteins  (1952)
Doctoral advisorDorothy Hodgkin

Pauline May Harrison (née Cowan) (born 24 August 1926) is a British protein crystallographer and professor emeritus at the University of Sheffield. She gained her chemistry degree from Somerville College, Oxford in 1948, followed by a DPhil in X-ray crystallography in 1952 supervised by Dorothy Hodgkin. After 3 years at King's College London (contemporary with Rosalind Franklin) she moved to the University of Sheffield in 1955 as a demonstrator in the Biochemistry department (now Molecular Biology and Biotechnology), obtaining an MRC grant to study the iron storage protein Ferritin, publishing preliminary X-ray diffraction data in the 1st volume of the Journal of Molecular Biology in 1959.[1] The molecule which became her life's work.[2][3] In 1978, she was awarded a personal chair and retired in 1991. In 2001 she was appointed a CBE for services to higher education.

Personal life[edit]

Harrison is the daughter of botanists Adeline May Organe and John Macqueen Cowan, Assistant Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. She was married to Royden Harrison, also a lecturer at Sheffield and a figure in the Labour movement until his death in 2002. Harrison is an alumna of St. Trinnean's School.[4]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Harrison, Pauline M. (1959), "The structures of ferritin and apoferritin: Some preliminary X-ray data", Journal of Molecular Biology, 1: 69–IN12, doi:10.1016/S0022-2836(59)80009-7
  2. ^ Pauline Harrison
  3. ^ Professor Pauline Harrison
  4. ^ Elizabeth Sleeman, ed. (2001), The International Who's Who of Women 2002, Psychology Press, p. 235, ISBN 9781857431223