Brigitte Alice Askonas (1 April 1923 – 9 January 2013) was a British immunologist and a visiting professor at Imperial College London from 1995.

Education

Brigitte Askonas was born to Czechoslovak parents, Jewish converts to Catholicism, who fled Austria after the Nazi takeover. Vienna-born Askonas studied biochemistry at McGill University (BSc, MSc) and carried out her postgraduate work in the school of biochemistry at the University of Cambridge where she was a student of Girton College, Cambridge. Her role models in the department included two distinguished scientists, Marjory Stephenson and

Dorothy Needham Dorothy Mary Moyle Needham FRS (22 September 1896 – 22 December 1987) was an English biochemist known for her work on the biochemistry of muscle. She was married to biochemist Joseph Needham. Early life and education Dorothy Mary Moyle wa ...

, two of the first women to be elected to the Royal Society. She said they taught her that "good science gets recognition regardless of the sex of the scientist". Her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

research was supervised by Malcolm Dixon.

Career and research

Her first position was at the Allan Memorial Institute of Psychiatry (associated with McGill University). In 1952, she joined the staff of the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) where she served as head of the division of Immunology from 1976 to 1988. During that time, she worked extensively with fellow immunologist

John H. Humphrey John Herbert Humphrey Order of the British Empire#Commander, CBE Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, FRCP (16 December 1915 – 25 December 1987) was a UK, British bacteriologist and immunologist. Education ...

to establish the immunology divisions. Askonas focused on B cells and determined their role in producing antibodies as part of the immune response. At the NIMR she began researching the

biosynthesis Biosynthesis is a multi-step, enzyme-catalyzed process where substrates are converted into more complex products in living organisms. In biosynthesis, simple compounds are modified, converted into other compounds, or joined to form macromolecules. ...

polypeptide Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. A p ...

s in milk proteins discovering that the peptides were synthesised from

amino acids Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

rapidly in one piece. From 1955-59 she studied the sites of antibody formation using radioactivity to develop our understanding of antibody molecules and the cells of the immune system. From 1959-61 she studied

plasma cell Plasma cells, also called plasma B cells or effector B cells, are white blood cells that originate in the lymphoid organs as B lymphocytes and secrete large quantities of proteins called antibodies in response to being presented specific substan ...

tumors as models for antibody formation. She went on to investigate macrophages and their role in antigen presentation (1962–1968). From 1963 to 1966 she studied the fate of antigen in relation to antibody formation and later continued her study of B cells from 1965 to 1970. She wrote several biographies of high-profile scientists, including

Niels Kaj Jerne Niels Kaj Jerne, FRS (23 December 1911 – 7 October 1994) was a Danish immunologist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Georges J. F. Köhler and César Milstein "for theories concerning the specificity in dev ...

César Milstein César Milstein, CH, FRS (8 October 1927 – 24 March 2002) was an Argentine biochemist in the field of antibody research. Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler for d ...

and

John Herbert Humphrey John Herbert Humphrey CBE FRS FRCP (16 December 1915 – 25 December 1987) was a British bacteriologist and immunologist. Education He was educated at Winchester School, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated from University College Hosp ...

. Askonas conducted
filmed interview
with

Stanley Peart Sir William Stanley Peart (31 March 1922 – 14 March 2019) was a British medical doctor and clinical researcher who was first to demonstrate the release of noradrenaline after the stimulation of sympathetic nerves. One or more of the preceding s ...

as a segment of what became the Medical Sciences Video Archive housed in the special collections of the library at

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic (United Kingdom), Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and High ...

Awards and honours

In 2007 she was made a foreign associate of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

of the United States and won the

Robert Koch Prize The Robert Koch Medal and Award are two prizes awarded annually by the German for excellence in the biomedical sciences. These awards grew out of early attempts by German physician Robert Koch to generate funding to support his research into the ...

. She was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1973 and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Askonas, Brigitte 1923 births 2013 deaths Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom British immunologists Female Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences McGill University Faculty of Science alumni National Institute for Medical Research faculty Place of death missing 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists Fellows of the Royal Society 21st-century American women