Professor Dame Carol Robinson, University of Oxford, UK, is the Lifetime Achievement Laureate in the European Inventor Award 2024. The European Inventor Award pays tribute to inventors worldwide and celebrates those who transform their ideas into technological progress, economic growth, or improvements to our daily lives. The European Patent Office (EPO) launched the award in 2006 and presents it in the categories industry, research, non-EPO countries, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and lifetime achievement. The award ceremony will be streamed live on July 9 at 12:00 CEST.
Carol Robinson’s research focuses on mass spectrometry. She is well known for her work on protein folding, ribosomes, molecular chaperones, and membrane proteins. She has made important contributions to structural biology in the gas phase. In particular, her research on the three-dimensional structure of proteins has demonstrated the power of mass spectrometry in the study of large molecular compounds. For the lifetime achievement award, the jury selected Robinson for her extensive contributions to blood analysis, drug development, and biochemical research. She is also the first woman to hold a full professorship in chemistry at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, UK. In addition, her commitment to mentorship has inspired numerous postgraduate students and early-career scientists.
Carol Robinson, born on April 10, 1956, left school at 16 and started work as a technician at Pfizer in Sandwich, Kent, UK, where she began working on mass spectrometry. She studied chemistry and received her Master’s degree from the University of Swansea, UK, and her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.
After postdoctoral research at the University of Bristol, UK, Robinson accepted a junior position in the mass spectrometry unit at the University of Oxford. She became the first female professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge in 2001 and at the University of Oxford in 2009. Robinson is co-founder and director of OMass Therapeutics, a spin-out company from the University of Oxford that uses mass spectrometry technology for drug discovery.
Among many other awards, Carol V. Robinson was awarded the Biemann Medal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry in 2003, the Christian B. Anfinsen Award from The Protein Society in 2008, the Davy Medal from the Royal Society of London in 2010, the Thomson Medal Award from the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation (IMSF) in 2014, the Frank H. Field and Joe L. Franklin Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2018, the Othmer Gold Medal in 2020, the 2022 European Chemistry Gold Medal by the European Chemical Society (EuChemS), and the Franklin Institute Award for Chemistry in 2022. In 2013, she was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), and in 2017 she was elected a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In addition, she has been awarded several honorary doctorates.
European Inventor Award 2024 Ceremony
Selected Publications
- Functional diversity among cardiolipin binding sites on the mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier,
Nanami Senoo, Dinesh K Chinthapalli, Matthew G Baile, Vinaya K Golla, Bodhisattwa Saha, Abraham O Oluwole, Oluwaseun B Ogunbona, James A Saba, Teona Munteanu, Yllka Valdez, Kevin Whited, Macie S Sheridan, Dror Chorev, Nathan N Alder, Eric R May, Carol V Robinson, Steven M Claypool,
EMBO J. 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44318-024-00132-2 - Phage defence system CBASS is regulated by a prokaryotic E2 enzyme that imitates the ubiquitin pathway,
Yan Yan, Jun Xiao, Fengtao Huang, Wei Xian, Bingbing Yu, Rui Cheng, Hui Wu, Xueling Lu, Xionglue Wang, Wenjing Huang, Jing Li, Greater Kayode Oyejobi, Carol V. Robinson, Hao Wu, Di Wu, Xiaoyun Liu, Longfei Wang, Bin Zhu,
Nat. Microbiol. 2024, 9, 1566–1578.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01684-z - Detergents with Scalable Properties Identify Noncanonical Lipopolysaccharide Binding to Bacterial Inner Membrane Proteins,
Leonhard H. Urner, Francesco Fiorentino, Denis Shutin, Joshua B. Sauer, Mark T. Agasid, Tarick J. El-Baba, Jani R. Bolla, Phillip J. Stansfeld, Carol V. Robinson,
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c14358 - Amyloid-β protein oligomerization and the importance of tetramers and dodecamers in the aetiology of Alzheimer’s disease,
Summer L. Bernstein, Nicholas F. Dupuis, Noel D. Lazo, Thomas Wyttenbach, Margaret M. Condron, Gal Bitan, David B. Teplow, Joan-Emma Shea, Brandon T. Ruotolo, Carol V. Robinson, Michael T. Bowers,
Nat. Chem. 2009, 1, 326–331.
https://doi.org/10.1038/NCHEM.247 - Ion mobility–mass spectrometry analysis of large protein complexes,
Brandon T Ruotolo, Justin L P Benesch, Alan M Sandercock, Suk-Joon Hyung, Carol V Robinson,
Nat. Protoc. 2008, 3, 1139–1152.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2008.78 - Mechanism of auxin perception by the TIR1 ubiquitin ligase,
Xu Tan, Luz Irina A. Calderon-Villalobos, Michal Sharon, Changxue Zheng, Carol V. Robinson, Mark Estelle, Ning Zheng,
Nature 2007, 446, 640–645.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05731
