Thorburn Brailsford Robertson: Brilliant Scientist, Innovator and Australia’s First Professor of Biochemistry

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
George E. Rogers

Thorburn Brailsford Robertson (1884–1930) was educated in Adelaide and held appointments at the University of California, Berkeley (where he completed his PhD in 1907), and the University of Toronto before taking up his appointment at Adelaide in 1919 as Australia's first Professor of Biochemistry. In his research on the biochemical basis of growth and senescence he discovered in pituitary tissue a growth factor he called Tethelin. He made important contributions to the fabric and collegiality of the University of Adelaide. Amongst his many scientific contributions he was the first person outside Canada to prepare insulin, a project taken up by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. In 1927 he became the first Chief of the Division of Animal Nutrition in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, for whom he investigated sheep nutrition and wool growth.

Author(s):  
Jasmine Johnston

Earle Birney was a Canadian poet, novelist, dramatist and professor. Born in 1904 in Calgary, Alberta, he spent his childhood in rural Alberta and British Columbia. His adult life was predominately spent in Canada, the USA, and the United Kingdom, although he travelled extensively. He died in Toronto in 1995. While Birney’s poetics were influenced by his academic training in Old English and Middle English, he frequently experimented with the avant-garde use of typography, orthography, dialect, and sound media. Following studies at the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of London, he accepted a professorship in the Department of English at the University of British Columbia in 1946. His teaching led to the foundation of the Department of Creative Writing at University of British Columbia in 1965. In the same year, however, he departed to the University of Toronto to serve as the school’s first writer-in-residence.


Author(s):  
Douglass F. Taber

Corey R. J. Stephenson of Boston University devised (Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 5040) a protocol using visible light for removing the PMB group from 1 to give 2. John F. Hartwig, now at the University of California, Berkeley, developed (Science 2011, 332, 439) a Ni catalyst for the cleavage of the durable aryl ether of 3 to give 4. Mark S. Taylor of the University of Toronto devised (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011, 133, 3724) the catalyst 6, which selectively mediated esterifi cation of 5 to 7. Jean-Marie Beau of the Université Paris-Sud added (Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 2146) Et3 SiH following the Fe-catalyzed deprotection-protection of 8, resulting in clean conversion to the bis ether 9. Mahmood Tajbakhsh of the University of Mazandaran showed (Tetrahedron Lett. 2011, 52, 1260) that guanidine HCl catalyzed the conversion of 10 to 11. Stephen W. Wright of Pfizer/Groton established (Tetrahedron Lett. 2011, 52, 3171) that the new urethane protecting group of 12, stable to many conditions, could be deprotected to 13 under conditions that spared even a Boc group. Matthias Beller of the Leibniz-Institute for Catalysis protected (Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 2152) the amine 14 as the readily hydrolyzed imidazole 16. Sentaro Okamoto of Kanagawa University found (Org. Lett. 2011, 13, 2626) a simple reagent combination for the removal of the sometimes reluctant sulfonamide from 17. Jordi Burés and Jaume Vilarrasa of the Universitat de Barcelona removed (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 3275) the oxime from 19 by Au-catalyzed exchange with 20. Pengfei Wang of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, designed (J. Org. Chem. 2011, 76, 2040) a range of photochemically removable protecting groups for aldehydes and ketones. Rafael Robles of the University of Granada selectively protected (J. Org. Chem. 2011, 76, 2277) the diol 24 using the reagent created by the activation of 25. Berit Olofsson of Stockholm University prepared (Org. Lett. 2011, 13, 3462) the phenyl ester 28 by exposing 27 to the diaryl iodonium triflate. Kannoth Manheri Muraleedharan of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, selectively (Org. Lett. 2011, 13, 1932) esterified 29 to 30 with catalytic SmCl3.


Author(s):  
Jean Laponce

The author is professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. One of his main research interests is the study of the relation between territory and ethnicity (see The Protection of Minorities, University of California Press, 1961; Languages and their Territories, University of Toronto Press, 1987; Sovereignty and Referendums, UBC Institute of International Relations, 2001). He is a member of the research committee on Political Geography of the International Political Science Association, a committee he founded in 1975 and co-chaired with Jean Gottmann.


Author(s):  
Rosalie Blair

Harry Morris Cassidy (1900–1951) was a Canadian academic, social reformer, civil servant, and, briefly, a politician. A pioneer in the field of social work, he was also the founding dean of the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1940s. He then worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. He subsequently became dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Toronto.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Amanda Miles is first author on ‘ Usher syndrome type 1-associated gene, pcdh15b, is required for photoreceptor structural integrity in zebrafish’, published in DMM. Amanda is a PhD student in the lab of Vincent Tropepe at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, investigating disease modelling for retinal development and disease mechanisms.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document