Professor Pamela Athalie Deidre Rickard (1928–2002) was an Australian biochemist, serving as head of the University of New South Wales School of Biological Sciences from 1981 to 1988. Born in Sydney, she worked for a few years at the Daily Telegraph newspaper, before completing a TAFE course and entering Sydney University as a mature age student. She then gained a master's in biochemistry at the New South Wales University of Technology, writing her thesis on the "iron-containing pigments of certain fungi" under Professor Bernhard Ralph and Dr Frank Moss, and graduating in 1961. She then began a PhD in London on the biosynthesis of

porphyrin Porphyrins ( ) are a group of heterocyclic macrocycle organic compounds, composed of four modified pyrrole subunits interconnected at their α carbon atoms via methine bridges (=CH−). The parent of porphyrin is porphine, a rare chemical com ...

s under Professor Claude Rimington, finishing in 1963. She then began a permanent lecturing position at the University of New South Wales, where she would remain until retirement in 1988. In the mid 1960s, she became part of the cutting edge field of

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

when the school was restructured as the Department of Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering, only the third biotechnology department in the world at the time. She worked initially on

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constit ...

biochemistry, followed by

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products ...

technology, making interesting discoveries relating to the

Crabtree effect The Crabtree effect, named after the English biochemist Herbert Grace Crabtree, describes the phenomenon whereby the yeast, ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'', produces ethanol (alcohol) in aerobic conditions at high external glucose concentrations rath ...

, where

cytochrome Cytochromes are redox-active proteins containing a heme, with a central Fe atom at its core, as a cofactor. They are involved in electron transport chain and redox catalysis. They are classified according to the type of heme and its mode of bi ...

s are not synthesised in high-glucose yeast environments. Her group also found that synthesis of other yeast fermentation enzymes was enhanced in such environments, discoveries useful to the brewing industry. In the 1970s, she worked on the use of enzymes in wine production, with the goal of using sultana grapes for wine, before moving on to the digestion of ligno-cellulosic waste. In 1974 she published a review of the use of enzyme technology in industry. She retired in 1988, receiving an emeritus professorship, compiling and editing a ''History of the Development of Biotechnology at UNSW'' in the same year.

References

Further reading