Carol V. Robinson

Dame Carol Vivien Robinson, DBE, FRS^[8] FMedSci (née Bradley, born 10 April 1956^[1]) is a British chemist. She is a Royal Society Research Professor at the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford, as well as the Dr Lee's Professor of Chemistry Elect. She was previously Professor of Mass Spectrometry at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cambridge.^{[7][9][10][11]}

Early life and education

Born in Kent, the daughter of Denis E. Bradley and Lillian (née Holder),^[12] Carol Vivien Bradley left school at 16 and began her career as a lab technician in Sandwich, Kent with Pfizer, where she began working with the then novel technique of mass spectrometry. ^[13]

Her potential was spotted, and she gained further qualifications at evening classes and day release from her job at Pfizer. After earning her degree, she left Pfizer and studied for a Master of Science degree at the University of Swansea, followed by a PhD at the University of Cambridge,^[14] which she completed in just two years, rather than the more usual three.^[9] During this time she was a student at Churchill College, Cambridge.^[1]

Career and research

After a postdoctoral training fellowship at the University of Bristol,^[15] she took eight years out to raise a family. She returned to science by taking up a junior position in the mass spectrometry unit at the University of Oxford, where she began analysing protein folding.^[16] In 2001, she returned to Cambridge to take up a professorship in the Department of Chemistry, becoming this department's first female professor. She took up her current position in Oxford in 2009.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

Awards and honours

Robinson was awarded the American Society for Mass Spectrometry's Biemann Medal in 2003, and the Christian B. Anfinsen Award in 2008. In 2004 the Royal Society awarded her both a Fellowship (FRS)^[8] and the Rosalind Franklin Award.^[22][23] In 2010 she received the Davy Medal "for her ground-breaking and novel use of mass spectrometry for the characterisation of large protein complexes".^[24][25] Her nomination for the Royal Society reads:^[8]

Distinguished for her research on the application of mass spectrometry to problems in chemical biology. She has used mass spectrometry to define the folding and binding of interacting proteins in large complexes. Most importantly, she has established that macromolecular complexes such as GroEL, ribosomes, and intact virus capsids can be generated in the gas phase and their electrospray mass spectra recorded. This work has demonstrated the power of mass spectrometry in studying very large complexes and allowed her to define changes in their conformation and the manner of their assembly.

In 2011 she was given the Interdisciplinary Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry for "development of a new area of research, gas-phase structural biology, using highly refined mass spectrometry techniques",^[26] and the Aston Medal. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Kent, the University of York, and the University of Bristol.^[27]

She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to science and industry.^[28]

In 2015 she was L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science; "For her groundbreaking work in macromolecular mass spectrometry and pioneering gas phase structural biology by probing the structure and reactivity of single proteins and protein complexes, including membrane proteins."^[29]

References