Everything about David Chilton Phillips totally explained
David Chilton Phillips, Baron Phillips of Ellesmere,
KBE,
FRS (
7 March 1924 -
23 February 1999) is considered to be a founding father of the now expanding field of
structural biology and was an influential figure in science and government. Among scientists, he'll be remembered as the first person ever to determine in atomic detail the structure of the
enzyme lysozyme, which he did in the Davy Faraday Research Laboratories of the
Royal Institution in
London in 1965. Lysozyme, which was discovered in 1922 by
Alexander Fleming, is found in tear drops, nasal mucus, gastric secretions and egg white. Lysozyme exhibits some antibacterial activity so that the discovery of its structure and mode of action were key scientific objectives. David Phillips solved the structure of lysozyme and also explained the mechanism of its action in destroying certain
bacteria by a brilliant application of the technique of
X-ray crystallography, a technique to which he'd been introduced as a PhD student at the University in Cardiff, and to which he later made major instrumental contributions.
David Chilton Phillips, the son of a tailor and Methodist preacher, was born in
Ellesmere, Shropshire which gave rise to his title Baron Phillips of Ellesmere. He was educated at Oswestry Grammar School and then at the University College of South Wales and Monmouth where he studied
physics,
electrical engineering, and
mathematics. His degree was interrupted between 1944 and 1947 for services in the Navy as a radar officer on
HMS Illustrious. He returned to
Cardiff to complete his degree and subsequently undertook postgraduate studies with Professor Arthur J. C. Wilson, a noted X-ray crystal physicist. After a brief postdoctoral period at the National Research Council in Ottawa (1951-55) he joined the Royal Institution. In 1968 he became the Professor of Molecular Biophysics in the Department of Zoology at the
University of Oxford where he remained until his retirement in 1985. During that time he became a Fellow of the
Royal Society and then its Biological Secretary from 1976 to 1983.
David was made
Knight Bachelor in 1979, Knight Commander,
Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1989 and appointed in 1994 as a Life Peer, as
Baron Phillips of Ellesmere. In the
House of Lords, he chaired the select committee on Science and Technology and he's credited with getting Parliament onto the
World Wide Web.
Lord Phillips died of cancer, on
23 February,
1999.
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