Delphine Mary Vera Parrott

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(2 May 1928 – 17 January 2016) was a British

endocrinologist Endocrinology (from ''endocrine'' + '' -ology'') is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events ...

, immunologist, and academic. She did research at the

National Institute for Medical Research The National Institute for Medical Research (commonly abbreviated to NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC); In 2016, the NIMR b ...

in the 1950s and 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 ...

in the 1960s. In 1967, she moved to the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

and became its first female

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

in 1973. She became the Gardiner Professor of Immunology there in 1980 and retired in 1990. She was an honorary member of the

British Society for Immunology The British Society for Immunology, or BSI, is a UK-based organisation of British immunologists but accepts members from all countries. It was founded in November 1956 by John H. Humphrey, Robin Coombs, Bob White, and Avrion Mitchison and is one ...

Early life

She was born in

Dulwich Dulwich (; ) is an area in south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth, and consists of Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, and the Southwark half of ...

in May 1928. She studied physiology at Bedford College, graduating in 1949, and then gained a doctorate at

King's College London School of Medicine GKT School of Medical Education (abbreviated: GKT) is the medical school of King's College London. The school has campuses at three institutions, Guy's Hospital (Southwark), King's College Hospital (Denmark Hill) and St Thomas' Hospital (Lambet ...

in 1952.

Career

Parrott's first job was for the Medical Research Council, working in their Clinical Endocrinology Research Unit in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

from 1952 to 1954. Alan Parkes then recruited her to assist him researching reproductive biology at the

Mill Hill Mill Hill is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is situated around northwest of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until 1965, when it became part of Greater London. Its population counted 18, ...

. He valued her skill in vivisecting small animals and she started by transplanting

ovaries The ovary is an organ in the female reproductive system that produces an ovum. When released, this travels down the fallopian tube into the uterus, where it may become fertilized by a sperm. There is an ovary () found on each side of the body. T ...

into mice that had been sterilised by radiation, as a way of restoring their fertility. Another experiment led to a major paper which was published in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'' in 1960: "Role of Olfactory Sense in Pregnancy Block by Strange Males". In this case, she removed the

olfactory bulb The olfactory bulb (Latin: ''bulbus olfactorius'') is a grey matter, neural structure of the vertebrate forebrain involved in olfaction, the sense of odor, smell. It sends olfactory information to be further processed in the amygdala, the orbitof ...

of female mice to show that this prevented them from aborting when exposed to a strange male. This confirmed that smell was involved in the

Bruce effect The Bruce effect, or pregnancy block, is the tendency for female rodents to terminate their pregnancies following exposure to the scent of an unfamiliar male. The effect was first noted in 1959 by Hilda M. Bruce, and has primarily been studied in ...

. Her co-author,

Hilda Bruce Hilda Margaret Bruce (5 April 1903 – 2 November 1974) was a British zoologist, best known for her discovery of the Bruce effect, a pheromonal behaviour observed in many rodent species. Her work on the control of fertility earned her the Oliv ...

had previously shown that mice would have a miscarriage if they smelt a strange male. At the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, she studied the immunological effect of the

thymus The thymus is a specialized primary lymphoid organ of the immune system. Within the thymus, thymus cell lymphocytes or ''T cells'' mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts to specific foreign invaders. ...

, experimenting on newly born mice by observing the effects of removal of the thymus upon their immune system such as the production of

lymphocytes A lymphocyte is a type of white blood cell (leukocyte) in the immune system of most vertebrates. Lymphocytes include natural killer cells (which function in cell-mediated, cytotoxic innate immunity), T cells (for cell-mediated, cytotoxic adap ...

. These results were widely debated as the findings were unexpected. In 1967, she moved to the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, to work in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology as a senior lecturer. In 1973, she became a professor, the first woman to hold a chair in Glasgow University's 500-year history. In 1974, she was made a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. In 1980, she became the head of the department and the Gardiner professor, when her predecessor, R.G. White, retired. She retired in 1990.

Later life

Parrott died on 17 January 2016, aged 87.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parrott, Delphine Mary Vera 1928 births 2016 deaths Academics of the University of Glasgow Alumni of Bedford College, London Alumni of King's College London British endocrinologists Women endocrinologists British immunologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh National Institute for Medical Research faculty People from Dulwich