British bacteriologist dies

Patricia Clarke, a distinguished British biochemist who deepened the field's understanding of bacterial evolution and was a role model for women in science, died last month at 90 years of age.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Image: Wikimedia Commons, CDC/Janice Haney Carr

"She had always been determined to get into academia," said Barbara Banks, a physiological chemist and a former colleague at the University College London. "She was a student at Cambridge - before the days when they gave degrees to women." Clarke grew up in south Wales and won a scholarship to Girton College at the University of Cambridge in 1937. In her final year there, Clarke became inspired by the microbiologist Marjory Stephenson, and turned to studying biochemistry. After a few posts at biochemical labs throughout the United Kingdom, Clarke's landed a lectureship position at the University College London in 1953, a time when there were only a handful of other...