Antoinette Pirie
Antoinette Pirie | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 5 October 1905 |
| Died | 11 October 1991 (aged 86) |
| Citizenship | British |
| Alma mater | Newnham College, Cambridge |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | biochemistry |
| Doctoral advisor | Frederick Gowland Hopkins |
Antoinette Pirie (4 October 1905 – 11 October 1991) was a British biochemist, ophthalmologist, and educator.[1]
Life
She achieved a first-class honours in natural sciences (biochemistry) from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1932. She completed her PhD at the biochemical laboratory in Cambridge under the professorship of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins.[1]
In 1939, Pirie joined a team at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Mill Hill laboratories, lead by Ida Mann. The team investigated the effect of poison gases on the cornea and how to protect it from injury. Pirie was dedicated to the study of the eye for the rest of her life.
In 1942, she accompanied Ida Mann to Oxford as her assistant, and in 1947 she succeeded her, as Margaret Ogilvie reader in ophthalmology, at Somerville College, Oxford, and head of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. [2] This was a dramatic appointment of a non-clinician to the Oxford medical school.
Pirie established the Xerophthalmia Bulletin in 1972 and was also the editor and secretary. The bulletin comprised extracts from current scientific journals and original articles and comments. She relinquished the editorship in 1985.
A passionate supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1950's, she made herself an expert on the radioactive hazards of nuclear explosions. In 1957, in collaboration with nine working scientists – physicists, geneticists, physicians, and biologists, she edited Fallout to publicise the dangers which at that time the government was tending to minimize or conceal. Her scrupulous accuracy ensured that no criticism could be levelled at the book.[1]
She died 11 October 1991, in Oxford.[3]
References
- ^ a b c van Heyningen, Ruth E. "Pirie, Antoinette (1905–1991)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
- ^ "A brief history of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology". Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences.
- ^ Harding, J.J. "Dr. Antoinette Pirie (1905–1991)". Ophthalmic Res. 1992, 24:59–60. Oxford. doi:10.1159/000267147.