Edward Penley Abraham
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Sir Edward Abraham CBE FRS |
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Abraham at the Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford in 1939
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| Born | Edward Penley Abraham 10 June 1913 Shirley, Southampton |
| Died | 8 May 1999 (aged 85) |
| Institutions | University of Oxford |
| Alma mater | The Queen's College, Oxford |
| Thesis | Some substituted peptides and Experiments with lysozyme (1938) |
| Doctoral advisor | Sir Robert Robinson |
| Doctoral students |
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| Other notable students | Sir John Walker |
| Influences | Wilson Baker FRS |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Asbjörg Abraham (nee Harung) |
Sir Edward Penley Abraham, CBE FRS (10 June 1913 – 8 May 1999) was an English biochemist instrumental in the development of the first antibiotics penicillin and cephalosporin.
From 1924 Abraham attended King Edward VI School, Southampton, before achieving a First in Chemistry at The Queen's College, Oxford.
Abraham completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Sir Robert Robinson, during which he was the first to crystallise lysozyme, an enzyme discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming and shown to have antibacterial properties, and was later the first enzyme who's structure was solved using X-ray crystallography by Lord David Philips.
He then won a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and spent a year in Stockholm at the Biokemiska Institut.
He then moved back to Oxford and became part of a research team led by Sir Howard Florey at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, responsible for the development of penicillin and its medical applications. Sir Edward was specifically involved in the purification process and determination of its chemical structure. In 1940 Edward discovered penicillinase as the cause of bacterial resistance to antibiotics such as penicillin. In October 1943 Abraham and Sir Ernst Boris Chain proposed a novel beta-lactam structure with a fused two ring system. This proposal was confirmed in 1945 by Dorothy Hodgkin using X-ray crystallography. Florey formally recognised Abraham's work in 1948 by nominating him to be one of the first three "penicillin" research Fellows at Lincoln College, Oxford.
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