View source for Dorothy M. Needham

{{Short description|English biochemist (1896–1987)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
[[File:Dorothy Mary Moyle Needham.jpg|thumb|Dorothy Needham]]
'''Dorothy Mary Moyle Needham''' [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]]<ref>{{cite journal | author = Mikuláš Teich | author-link = Mikuláš Teich | year = 2003 | title = Dorothy Mary Moyle Needham. 22 September 1896 – 22 December 1987 | journal = [[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 49 | pages = 351–365 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.2003.0020 | pmid = 14989271 | doi-access = free }}</ref> (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 was born in [[London]], to patent clerk John Thomas Moyle and his wife, Ellen Daves.<ref name=ODNB>{{cite ODNB| last=Coley| first=N.G.| title=Needham [née Moyle], Dorothy Mary (1896–1987), biochemist| url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/56147| year=2004| doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/56147}}</ref> She attended Claremont College, [[Stockport]], an institution run by her aunt, Agnes Daves, and [[Alderley Edge School for Girls|St Hilary's School, Alderley Edge]], before entering [[Girton College, Cambridge]]. At Girton she became interested in [[chemistry]], and biochemistry in particular after attending the lectures of [[Frederick Gowland Hopkins]]. After completing undergraduate studies in 1919, in which she obtained a 3rd Class Honours, she was offered a research position with Hopkins—one of the few scientific leaders at Cambridge at the time who offered research opportunities for women—at the [[Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry]], Cambridge,<ref name=ODNB /> She earned a [[Master of Arts]] in 1923, and a [[PhD]] in 1930.<ref>Teich, p. 354</ref>
== Career ==
Moyle's first major research, in collaboration with Dorothy L. Foster, focused on the interconversion of [[lactic acid]] and [[glycogen]] in muscle, recapitulating the work of [[Otto Fritz Meyerhof]]. After that, she studied the roles of [[succinic acid]], [[fumaric acid]], and [[malic acid]] in muscle metabolism, as well as the biochemical differences and relationships between [[Aerobic respiration|aerobic]] and [[Anaerobic respiration|anaerobic]] pathways.<ref>Teich, p. 354-355</ref> She subsequently worked on cyclic phosphate transfer in muscle contraction and, with collaborators, established for the first time a direct correlation of structure and function in muscle by confirming in 1939 that [[myosin]], the contractile protein of muscle, behaves as the enzyme [[ATPase]] (adenosine triphosphatase).<ref name=DicSciBiog>{{cite web| last=Abir-Am| first=Pnina| title=Needham, Dorothy Moyle| url=http://0-go.galegroup.com.catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=wellcome&tabID=T003&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=3&contentSet=GALE%7CCX2830905943&&docId=GALE%7CCX2830905943&docType=GALE| work=Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 23| publisher=Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons| access-date=25 November 2013| year=2008}}{{Dead link|date=November 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
During World War II, Needham participated in research as a member of the chemical defence group led by Professor [[Malcolm Dixon (biochemist)|Malcolm Dixon]] for the [[Ministry of Supply]], focussing on the effects of chemical weapons (especially [[mustard gas]]) on skin and bone-marrow metabolism.<ref name=DicSciBiog />
In 1944, her husband was appointed scientific counsellor at the British embassy in Chungking ([[Chongqing]]), China, and Needham accompanied him to China where she was appointed associate director of the Sino-British co-operation office that he established there. They returned to Cambridge in 1945, where she continued research in protein and enzyme biochemistry, and she was awarded the degree of [[Doctor of Science]]. In 1948, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), making the Needhams the Royal Society's first married couple.<ref name=ODNB />
In 1962, she concluded her four decades of research in muscle biochemistry with a study of the proteins of smooth muscle in the uterus.
Her major work: ''Machina Carnis: The Biochemistry of Muscular Contraction in its Historical Development''<ref>{{cite book |author=Needham, Dorothy M. |title=Machina carnis; the biochemistry of muscular contraction in its historical development |publisher=University Press |location=Cambridge, Eng |year=1971 |isbn=0-521-07974-8 }}</ref><!--ref>{{cite pmc|1081480}}</ref><ref>{{cite pmc|1271688}}</ref--> which traces all the developments in the field since 1600, was published in 1971 and reissued in paperback in 2009.
She was an honorary fellow of [[Girton College, Cambridge|Girton College]], a co-founder and fellow of [[Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge|Lucy Cavendish College]], and an honorary fellow of [[Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge|Caius College]], where she was the first (and for a long time the only) woman fellow.<ref name=RS>
{{cite web| url=http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27needham%27%29| title=Library and Archive Catalogue| publisher=[[The Royal Society]]| access-date=2010-07-19}}</ref>
==Personal life and political activities ==
On 13 September 1924 Moyle married fellow biochemist [[Joseph Needham|(Noel) Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham]]. The couple had no children.
The Needhams were a socially and politically active couple who shared many causes—for example, both sat on the Cambridge Trade Council as representatives of the Association of Scientific Workers.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} Dorothy stood as a [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] candidate for [[Cambridge City Council]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Castle Ward |url=http://www.cambridgeelections.org.uk/citycas.htm#CAS_193511 |website=Cambridge City Council Elections |access-date=23 September 2019}}</ref> She supported numerous organisations, including [[Amnesty International]]; Animals' Vigilantes; Anti-Nuclear Campaign; Cambridge Welfare and Preservation Societies; Cambridge University's Newcomers Club; [[El Salvador]] Committee for Human Rights; [[Friends of the Earth]]; Medical and Scientific Aid for [[Vietnam]], [[Laos]] and [[Kampuchea]]; Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry; and the [[Movement for the Ordination of Women]].{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} She also helped to found two new colleges at Cambridge University for research women who had no college appointments: [[Murray Edwards College, Cambridge|New Hall]] in 1946, and [[Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge|Lucy Cavendish College]] in 1962.<ref name=DicSciBiog /> {{Dead link|date=July 2016}}
==References==
{{reflist}}
==Further reading==
{{DSB |first=Pnina G.  |last=Abir-Am |title=Needham, Dorothy Moyle  |volume=23 |pages=231–235 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Needham, Dorothy M.}}
[[Category:Joseph Needham]]
[[Category:Female fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Fellows of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:English biochemists]]
[[Category:British women chemists]]
[[Category:British women biologists]]
[[Category:1896 births]]
[[Category:1987 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:20th-century English women scientists]]