Rodney Porter | |
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| Born | Rodney Robert Porter (1917-10-08)8 October 1917 Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, England |
| Died | 6 September 1985(1985-09-06) (aged 67) Beacon Hill, Surrey, nearGuildford |
| Education |
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| Known for | Chemical structure ofantibodies |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biochemistry |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | The free amino groups of proteins (1948) |
| Doctoral advisor | Frederick Sanger[1] |
Rodney Robert Porter (8 October 1917 – 6 September 1985) was a Britishbiochemist[2][3] andNobel laureate.[4][5][6]
He was born inNewton-le-Willows, Lancashire, England, the son of Joseph Lawrence Porter, chief clerk of the Railway Carriage and Wagon Works in Earlestown (Newton-le-Willows), and his wife, Isabel May Reese. He was educated atAshton-in-Makerfield Grammar School.[7]
Rodney Robert Porter received his Bachelor of Science degree from theUniversity of Liverpool in 1939 forBiochemistry.
His career was interrupted byWorld War II during which he served as a 2nd Lieutenant in theRoyal Engineers serving in Sicily and North Africa. In 1944 he was promoted to Major and transferred to theRoyal Army Service Corps acting as a War Department analyst, based inNaples inItaly.[8]
After the war he moved to theUniversity of Cambridge where he becameFred Sanger's firstPhD student.[1] He was awarded his doctorate (PhD) in 1948.[9][10]
Porter worked for theNational Institute for Medical Research for eleven years (1949–1960) before joiningSt. Mary's Hospital Medical School,Imperial College London and becoming the Pfizer Professor of Immunology. In 1967 he was appointedWhitley Professor of Biochemistry at theUniversity of Oxford, and Fellow ofTrinity College, Oxford. His colleagueElizabeth Press (Betty Press) worked with him at NIMR, St Mary's and at Oxford contributing extensively to the work which led to the Nobel Prize.
Porter was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1964.[11] He won theGairdner Foundation International Award in 1966.[12] In 1972, Porter shared theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine withGerald M. Edelman for determining the chemical structure of anantibody.[13][14][15][16][17] Using theenzymepapain, he broke the blood'simmunoglobin into fragments, making them easier to study. He also looked into how the blood's immunoglobins react with cellular surfaces.He subsequently worked with colleagues Kenneth BM Reid, Robert Sim and Duncan Campbell on developing understanding of theComplement Proteins associated with defence against infection.
In 1991,Raymond Dwek founded the Oxford Glycobiology Institute at theDepartment of Biochemistry, University of Oxford and this building was named after Porter as the Rodney Porter building. The department organises the Rodney Porter Memorial Lecture every year.
In 1948 he married Julia New. They had five children together. She died in 2025 at the age of 98.[18]
Porter died following a four-car accident on 6 September 1985, nearBeacon Hill, Surrey, nearGuildford, as the driver of one of the cars. Julia was only slightly injured in the accident. They had been en route to France for a holiday, just prior to his formal retirement.[19]
, accessed 11 October 2020| International | |
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