Antoinette Pirie ( Patey; 4 October 1905 – 11 October 1991) was a British biochemist, ophthalmologist, and educator.

Biography

Antoinette Patey was born in Bond Street, London. Her father was a botanist and pharmacist. She was educated at

Wycombe Abbey School , motto_translation = Go in faith , established = 1896 , type = Independent boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Headmistress , head = J. Duncan , chair_label = Chair ...

, and then achieved a first-class honours in natural sciences (biochemistry) from

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

in 1932. She completed her PhD at the biochemical laboratory in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

under the professorship of Sir

Frederick Gowland Hopkins Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (20 June 1861 – 16 May 1947) was an English biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1929, with Christiaan Eijkman, for the discovery of vitamins, even though Casimir Funk, a Po ...

. She married fellow biochemist

Norman Pirie Norman Wingate (Bill) Pirie FRS (1 July 1907 – 29 March 1997), was a British biochemist and virologist who, along with Frederick Bawden, discovered that a virus can be crystallized by isolating tomato bushy stunt virus in 1936. This was a ...

in 1931. They had a son and a daughter.

Career

In 1939, Pirie joined a team at the

Imperial Cancer Research Fund Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

's Mill Hill laboratories, led by Ida Mann. The team investigated the effect of mustard gas on the

cornea The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. Along with the anterior chamber and lens, the cornea refracts light, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical ...

. Pirie was dedicated to the study of the eye for the rest of her life. In 1942, she accompanied Ida Mann to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

as her assistant, and in 1947 she succeeded her, as Margaret Ogilvie reader in ophthalmology, at Somerville College, Oxford, and head of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. One of her main concerns was deficiencies of vitamin A causing

xerophthalmia Xerophthalmia (from Ancient Greek "xērós" (ξηρός) meaning "dry" and "ophthalmos" (οφθαλμός) meaning "eye") is a medical condition in which the eye fails to produce tears. It may be caused by vitamin A deficiency, which is someti ...

and leading to blindness in the Third World. Pirie established the ''Xerophthalmia Bulletin'' in 1972 and was also the editor and secretary. The bulletin comprised extracts from current scientific journals and original articles and comments. She relinquished the editorship in 1985. Like her husband, she was an atheist and a passionate supporter of the

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuc ...

(CND). She became an expert on the radioactive hazards of

nuclear explosion A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, tho ...

s. Her husband was chairman of the CND scientific committee for several years. In 1957, in collaboration with nine working scientists – physicists, geneticists, physicians, and biologists, she edited ''Fallout'' to publicise the dangers which at that time the government was tending to minimize or conceal. Her scrupulous accuracy ensured that no criticism could be levelled at the book. She died in

, survived by her husband and two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pirie, Antoinette 1905 births 1991 deaths British atheists British biochemists British ophthalmologists Women ophthalmologists Cancer researchers Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activists Academics of the University of Oxford 20th-century British medical doctors 20th-century British women scientists