Pauline Harrison
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 awarded a CBE for services to higher education.
Pauline May Harrison  | |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 August 1926 | 
| Alma mater | Somerville College, Oxford | 
| Known for | Protein crystallography of ferritin | 
| Spouse(s) | Royden Harrison | 
| Awards | CBE, DSc | 
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology, crystallography | 
| Institutions | University of Sheffield | 
| Thesis | X-Ray crystallographic studies in some peptides and proteins (1952) | 
| Doctoral advisor | Dorothy Hodgkin | 
Personal life
    
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
    
- 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
 - Pauline Harrison
 - Professor Pauline Harrison
 - Elizabeth Sleeman, ed. (2001), The International Who's Who of Women 2002, Psychology Press, p. 235, ISBN 9781857431223