Rodney Porter
English biochemist
- 1 min read
- 4 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Biochemistry, World War II and Italy
Education and early life
He was born in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, England, the son of Joseph Lawrence Porter, chief clerk of the Railway Carriage and Wagon Works in Earlestown (Newton-le-Willows), and his wife, Isabel May Reese. He was educated at Ashton-in-Makerfield Grammar School.
Rodney Robert Porter received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Liverpool in 1939 for Biochemistry.
His career was interrupted by World War II during which he served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers serving in Sicily and North Africa. In 1944 he was promoted to Major and transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps acting as a War Department analyst, based in Naples in Italy.
After the war he moved to the University of Cambridge where he became Fred Sanger's first PhD student. He was awarded his doctorate (PhD) in 1948.
Sign in to keep reading
3 more chapters are free with a Lably account.
Career and research
Porter worked for the National Institute for Medical Research for eleven years (1949–1960) before joining St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, Imperial College London and becoming the Pfizer Professor of Immunology. In 1967 he was appointed Whitley Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. His colleague Elizabeth Press (Betty Press) worked with him at NIMR, St Mary's and at Oxford contributing extensively to the work which led to the Nobel Prize.
Family
In 1948 he married Julia New. They had five children together. She died in 2025 at the age of 98.
Death
Porter died following a four-car accident on 6 September 1985, near Beacon Hill, Surrey, near Hindhead, as the driver of one of the cars. Julia was only slightly injured in the accident. They had been en route to France for a holiday, just prior to his formal retirement.