Carol Robinson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Dame Carol Robinson
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Carol Robinson presenting John Fenn Lecture 2023
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Carol Vivien Bradley
10 April 1956 |
| Nationality | British |
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| Thesis | Structural studies on bioactive organic compounds (1982) |
Dame Carol Vivien Robinson, born on April 10, 1956, is a famous British chemist. She used to be the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 2018 to 2020. She is a top professor at the University of Oxford, where she studies physical and theoretical chemistry. She also helped start the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery at Oxford. Before this, she was a professor at the University of Cambridge, focusing on a special technique called mass spectrometry.
Early Life and Education
Carol Vivien Bradley was born in Kent, England. She left school when she was 16 years old. She started working as a lab technician at a company called Pfizer in Sandwich, Kent. There, she began to learn about a new scientific method called mass spectrometry.
People at Pfizer saw how talented she was. She kept learning by taking evening classes and getting time off work to study. After earning her first degree, she left Pfizer. She then went on to get a Master of Science degree from the University of Swansea. After that, she earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge in just two years! During her time at Cambridge, she was a student at Churchill College, Cambridge.
Career and Amazing Discoveries
After finishing her studies, Carol Robinson worked at the University of Bristol. Then, she joined the mass spectrometry team at the University of Oxford. Here, she started to study how proteins fold. Proteins are tiny building blocks in our bodies. She and her team found a way to watch proteins fold. They even showed that parts of a protein's shape could be studied in a gas form.
Professor Robinson made history by becoming the first woman professor in the chemistry department at both the University of Cambridge (in 2001) and the University of Oxford (in 2009). Her research has pushed the boundaries of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. This method helps scientists study large molecules like proteins in a gas.
Besides studying protein folding, she has done important work on ribosomes and molecular chaperones. These are like tiny machines in our cells. More recently, she has focused on membrane proteins. Her work has greatly helped us understand the structure of proteins in a gas. This helps in finding new medicines. She also helped start a company called OMass Therapeutics. This company uses mass spectrometry to discover new drugs.
Awards and Special Honours
Carol Robinson has received many important awards for her scientific work.
- In 2003, she won the Biemann Medal.
- In 2004, she became a Fellow (FRS) of the Royal Society. This is a very high honour for scientists. She also received the Rosalind Franklin Award.
- In 2008, she received the Christian B. Anfinsen Award.
- In 2010, she was given the Davy Medal. This was for her new way of using mass spectrometry to study large protein groups.
- In 2011, she won the Interdisciplinary Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry. This was for creating a new field of study called "gas-phase structural biology." She also received the Aston Medal and the FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award.
- In 2013, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). This is a special title given by the Queen for services to science and industry.
- In 2014, she received the Thomson Medal Award.
- In 2015, she won the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award. This was for her amazing work on large molecules and studying proteins in a gas.
- In 2017, she was chosen as a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.
- In 2018, she won the Frank H. Field and Joe L. Franklin Award. This was for her outstanding work in mass spectrometry.
- In 2019, she received the Novozymes Prize for starting a new area in mass spectrometry. She also won the Royal Medal.
- In 2020, she was given the Othmer Gold Medal.
- In 2021, she received the 2022 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine and the 2022 European Chemistry Gold Medal. She also became an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- In 2022, she was awarded the Franklin Institute Award for Chemistry.
- In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. She also received the John B. Fenn Award. She was named one of the top ten "Innovators and Trailblazers" by the Analytical Scientist.
- In 2024, she received the EPO European Inventor Lifetime Achievement Award. This was for her work in mass spectrometry that helped advance medical research. On June 19, 2024, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge.
She has also received 13 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. These include the Weizmann Institute of Science, Aarhus University Denmark, the University of Kent, the University of York, and the University of Bristol.
