Nobel Laureates: They helped make world a safer place

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Many people will have heard of the late Derby MP and Nobel Laureate Philip Noel-Baker. But how many could name Derbyshire’s two other Nobel Prize-winners? Nicola Rippon provides the answer.

WHEN Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, wealthy industrialist and inventor, left a legacy with which to reward those “who...have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”, he could little have imagined the diversity and ingenuity of those who would be honoured.

Nobel Laureates have come from all corners of the globe, and no fewer than three could boast Derbyshire associations, two of them local origins.

Philip Noel-Baker, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959, is by far the best known. A Quaker and pacifist by upbringing, Noel-Baker served as an ambulance driver during the First World War and worked to establish both the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations.

He worked with refugees and prisoners-of-war and campaigned for multilateral disarmament.

He was awarded his Nobel Prize as a “lifelong ardent worker for international peace and co-operation”.

Yet, although he served as MP for Derby South between 1936 and 1950, and had a local school named in his honour, Noel-Baker had few Derbyshire connections.

Far less famous, but natural-born sons of the county, are Nobel Laureates Sir Robert Robinson and Richard John Roberts, whose contributions to “mankind” were recognized in 1947 for chemistry and 1993 for medicine, respectively.

Robert Robinson was born in Chesterfield on September 13, 1886, the son of William Bradbury Robinson, a surgical dressing and box manufacturer and proprietor of what has since become the world-renowned Robinsons Healthcare.

While his father’s business acumen helped him transform his industry and accrue a significant fortune, Robert was destined for an academic, rather than commercial career.

He attended Chesterfield Grammar School before becoming a boarder at the Moravian-run Fulneck School, near Pudsey, in West Yorkshire.

From 1906 he studied at Victoria University in Manchester, where he earned his BSc, and a doctorate in 1910.

He had also formed a research group, a prominent member of which was Gertrude Maude Walsh, a noted scientist in her own right, whom he married in 1912.

Robinson later held a number of academic positions – in 1912 he was appointed the first Professor of Pure and Applied Organic Chemistry at the University of Sydney and he taught at the Universities of Liverpool, St Andrew’s, Manchester and London before, in 1930, being appointed Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.

But it was for work he had begun in 1920, while Director of Research at the British Dyestuffs Corporation (later part, with Nobel Industries, of ICI) that Robinson came to prominence.

He had become recognised for his work studying the structure and synthesis of plant pigmentations and other organic compounds.

From here, Robinson had begun research into alkaloids – complex, naturally occurring, nitrogen-containing compounds that are known to have profound biochemical effects on all living things.

It was through his efforts to determine the chemical reactions that form alkaloids in plants that, in 1925, Robinson discovered the detailed structure of morphine.

Additionally, Robinson analysed papaverine (used to improve blood flow and as an intestinal relaxant) and narcotine (an anti-spasmodic), which, like morphine, were derived from opium.

Elements of his work led, ultimately, to the successful production of anti-malarial drugs.

By the end of the Second World War, Robinson had discovered how to synthesise strychnine and brucine and recorded the exact structure of the antibiotic penicillin.

In later years, this enabled other scientists to create synthetic versions of the powerful antibiotic, and thus helped to treat all manner of infections and save countless lives.

Robinson is also credited with the first use of “curly arrows”, which show the movement of electrons during organic reactions.

In recognition of his work, Robinson received numerous awards, among them the Longstaff, Faraday and Flintoff Medals of the Chemical Society; the Davy, Royal and Copley Medals from the Royal Society; and the Medal of Freedom from the US Government.

He received honorary doctorates from more than 20 British and foreign universities and served on more than 30 government committees.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and of the Royal Society, of which he was president from 1945-1950.

Robinson was also president of the Chemical Society between 1939 and 1941 and was made a Commandeur de la Legion d’Honneur.

But it was the award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1947 that brought Robinson the greatest international recognition.

The Swedish Academy of Sciences, responsible for choosing the chemistry Laureate, cited his lifetime work and “investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids”.

That year, Robinson was the UK delegate to the first conference of UNESCO and, in 1955, upon his retirement, was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College and director of the Shell Chemical Company.

Robinson, while intensely energetic, was known for a volatile temperament and impatience with administration and little of his original material – usually written in a single copy of longhand – has survived.

Sir Robert Robinson was knighted in 1939 and appointed to the Order of Merit 10 years later.

In recognition of his work, the Royal Society of Chemistry established the biennial Robert Robinson Lectureship in 1964. He died in February 1975.

By contrast, Derbyshire’s other Nobel Laureate achieved most of his breakthroughs in the United States. Richard John Roberts was born on September 6, 1943, at the Nightingale Maternity Home in Derby, and spent his early childhood living at 124 Almond Street, before his motor mechanic father moved the family to Bath.

At school, Roberts discovered a passion for puzzle-solving and later, with the help and inspiration of his teachers and parents, a love of mathematics and science.

Yet, there was little sign of the ambition and brilliance that would see him awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology of Medicine in 1993.

All that changed when his parents gave him his first chemistry set. Immediately casting aside his ambitions to become a police detective, Roberts quickly completed all the available experiments and, with his parents’ support, established a small chemistry lab at home, setting himself on a scientific path.

A brilliant mathematician, Roberts soon found chemistry and physics did not challenge and engage him, and it took him two attempts to pass his Physics A-Level.

He suffered similarly at Sheffield University, where he found teaching methods dry and unstimulating.

While studying for his PhD in organic chemistry, Roberts began to read papers on molecular biology and pursued that discipline from 1969, when he moved to the United States to complete his post-doctorate studies at Harvard University where he became a Research Fellow.

Three years later, after an impressive 10-minute interview, the directors of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in south-eastern New York State, offered Roberts a post as a senior staff investigator.

Here he studied DNA in viruses, using enzymes to cut DNA into manageable pieces for sequencing. In total, Roberts and his team managed to isolate around 75 of the 100 known enzymes.

It was this work that lead the Derby-born scientist to make his Nobel prize-winning discovery in 1977.

Roberts and a colleague were doing work partly funded by the National Cancer Institute. Like most scientists who make remarkable discoveries, Roberts and his partner “stumbled” across some anomalous data. Curious, they investigated further.

While biologists had long believed that genes consisted of unbroken stretches of DNA, all of which encoded protein structure, Roberts and his team found that the genes of a common-cold-causing adenovirus were not so formed.

They produced biological and visual proof that some contained segments of DNA that did code for protein (exons), interrupted by lengthy stretches of surplus DNA that did not contain genetic information (introns) – the so-called “split gene”.

Later that year, a separate, and rival, research team, led by Phillip Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, produced the same findings, confirming Roberts’ data.

Later research established that this discontinuous gene structure is the most common type found in complex organisms and the discovery has proved essential for even the most basic biological research.

In particular, it has proved fundamentally important in medical research. The discovery of split genes has since revolutionised the way in which scientists view the development and evolution of genes in higher organisms like mammals.

It has advanced research into the causes of, and potential treatment, and cure of, a variety of genetic diseases – in particular some cancers.

Roberts also helped to develop one of the first computer programs that could map and analyse DNA and advocated the use of computer technology in molecular biology.

In 1992, Roberts moved to New England Biolabs as one of two Research Directors, where he continued his groundbreaking research.

In August 1993, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced that that year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine was to be shared between Richard J Roberts and Phillip Sharp.

Besides the Nobel Prize, Roberts has received many awards and honours. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1979, and in 2000 was one of the selected Nobel Laureates chosen to appear on postage stamps issued by the Palau Islands.

Roberts is a prominent campaigner for the advancement of medical research and was one of 80 Nobel Laureates who, in 2001, signed an open letter to President George W Bush urging Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Highly-regarded for his dry sense of humour, Roberts even made an appearance on the “Stud Muffins of Science 1997 Calendar” and makes annual trips to the Ig Nobel Awards, a tongue-in cheek parallel of the Nobels to honour eccentric achievements “that first make people laugh, and then make them think”, held at Harvard University.

Roberts’ high profile in genetic research also brought him to the attention of less altruistic individuals like the infamous “Unabomber”, Ted Kaczynski, who, between 1978 and 1996, terrorised the United States with parcel and package bombs that maimed and killed.

Both Roberts and his fellow Laureate Sharp received letters from the bomber, who made a particular target of academics and scientists.

The Nobel Laureates were perhaps fortunate – this was the only time the Unabomber forewarned his targets.

Adapted from Derbyshire’s Own, by Nicola Rippon, published by Sutton, priced £9.99.

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