Isabella Helen Mary Muir

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FRS (20 August 1920 – 28 November 2005) was a British biochemist. She did pioneering work on the causes of

osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis (OA) is a type of degenerative joint disease that results from breakdown of joint cartilage and underlying bone which affects 1 in 7 adults in the United States. It is believed to be the fourth leading cause of disability in the w ...

Personal life

Early life

Muir was born in India to G. B. F. (Basil) Muir and Gladys Helen Mary, and spent the first 10 years of her life there. Until moving to Europe in 1930, Muir had no formal education and was educated by her mother. At the age of 10, Muir began her general education at a boarding school in

Montreux Montreux (, , ; frp, Montrolx) is a Swiss municipality and town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps. It belongs to the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and has a population of approxima ...

, Switzerland and at the Downe House in Berkshire, England. She began attending

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...

in Oxford, England in 1940, with the original intentions of studying medicine. However, under the influence of her tutor, Dorothy Hodgkin, she switched her area of focus to chemistry. She graduated in 1944 with a second-class degree. She then went on to earn her Doctor of Philosophy in 1947 for a thesis on the chemical synthesis of penicillin – the supply of penicillin to stop wound infection was of high priority, as she did her research during World War II.

Adult life

Muir, a "fiery redhead", never married. The year after she earned her PhD, she worked as a research fellow at the

Sir William Dunn School of Pathology The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology is a department within the University of Oxford. Its research programme includes the cellular and molecular biology of pathogens, the immune response, cancer and cardiovascular disease. It teaches undergra ...

at the University of Oxford. Albert Neuberger then recruited her into a new group in London in the biochemical division of 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 ...

, and she moved to

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 18,45 ...

in 1949. Muir's interests shifted to biology under Neuberger, as he was studying the origin of haem biosynthesis. Muir published her first major papers with Neuberger in the

Biochemical Journal The ''Biochemical Journal'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal which covers all aspects of biochemistry, as well as cell and molecular biology. It is published by Portland Press and was established in 1906. History The journal was established ...

in 1949 and 1950 on the

biogenesis Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise ...

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. This initial work led to Muir's interest in collagen and human connective tissues. She was awarded an Empire Rheumatism Fellowship with research space at St. Mary's Medical School in London. For most of Muir's career, she worked at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in Hammersmith, the world's first specialist rheumatology institute. She was recruited to head a research division at The Kennedy Institute in 1966. During her time at the Institute, she published papers in the

and Nature. She then went on to become the Institute's director in 1977, the same year she was one of only a few women made a Fellow of the Royal Society.Hardingham, Tim (2018). "Isabella Helen Mary Muir CBE. 20 August 1920—28 November 2005". ''

Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society The ''Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society'' is an academic journal on the history of science published annually by the Royal Society. It publishes obituaries of Fellows of the Royal Society. It was established in 1932 as ''Obitua ...

''. do
10.1098/rsbm.2017.0042
/ref> Muir's group at the Kennedy Institute worked discovering the structure and functions of proteoglycans, proteins that make up a large part of cartilage. She is largely credited with discovering and exploring the varied causes of

and with illuminating the biochemical causes of the condition, which had previously been considered unworthy of study. Muir retired from the Kennedy Institute in 1990.

Later life and death

Muir retired to

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

, where her interest in science and medicine continued. She added solar panelling to her house and worked to preserve the habitats of local wildlife. After battling breast cancer for several years, she died on 28 November 2005 in her home near Bedale, Yorkshire.

Personal life

Early life

Adult life

Later life and death

References

Further reading