Gertrude Maud Robinson
| Gertrude Maud Robinson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gertrude Maud Walsh 6 February 1886 Winsford, Cheshire |
| Died | 1 March 1954 (aged 58) |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Organic chemistry |
| Alma mater | Owens College |
| Spouse | Robert Robinson |
Gertrude Maud Robinson (formerly Walsh) was an influential organic chemist most famous for her work on plant pigments; the Piloty-Robinson Pyrrole Synthesis, which is named for her; her syntheses of fatty acids; and her synthesis of δ-hexenolactone, the first synthetic molecule with the character of penicillin.
Robinson was born on February 6, 1886 in Winsford, Cheshire and died of a heart attack on March 1, 1954. After attending Verdin Secondary School, she was granted her B. Sc. in 1907 and M. Sc. in 1908 from Owens College. She then researched at the University of Manchester under Chaim Weizmann, who later became the first president of Israel, and taught chemistry at the Manchester High School for Girls.
In 1912 she married Robert Robinson, who later won the 1947 Nobel Prize and with whom she coauthored many papers, and moved to the position of an unpaid demonstrator at the University of Sydney before briefly going to the St. Andrews in Scotland and University College in London. She worked on the syntheses of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids and was the first to synthesize oleic acid and lactarinic acid. Her methods led to her synthesis of fatty acids with the greatest molecular weights of the time (specifically, tricontanoic and 13-oxodotetracontanoic acids).
She also independently suggested the asymmetric structure of aromatic azoxy-compounds and, with her husband, postulated a mechanism for the Fischer Indole Synthesis. Based on this mechanism and working off the pyrrole syntheses of Piloty, the couple provided a method for synthesizing tetraphenylpyrrole . The Piloty-Robinson Pyrrole Synthesis is named in their honor.
After moving to the University of Oxford, Gertrude Robinson began studying plant pigments and published extensively on anthocyanins with her husband. She was the first to observe that the color of a plant’s pigment was not related to the pH of its sap and she pioneered work in leucoanthocyanins. Additionally, she was the first to synthesize δ-hexenolactone, a molecule similar to penicillin that had its antibiotic properties. In 1953, the University of Oxford granted her an honorary M.A. degree.
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