Jane Endicott receives Louise johnson’s heiloom
As a child, Jane learnt to calmly observe the world around her from an artist, her father. He saw observation as an essential quality in a child and he inspired his children to appreciate their surroundings. Jane’s parents would take her on remote camping holidays in their VW campervan, when her “dad’s criterion for a suitable campsite was one that didn’t have a wash block because he didn’t like the idea of being with loads of people.” During these trips Jane would exercise a love of the natural world, collecting bugs and filling up her pressed flower book. Through her father she also became aware of the importance of loving your job, a vocation that you live and breathe. “I never grew up with the view that work was something you didn’t want to do. I grew up in an environment where somebody could have a passion, like art or science, and do it as a job. When I come home in the evening, I like to read scientific papers. My fun crossword is devising cloning strategies, looking at structures, delving into patterns and having the fun of exploring proteins.” It wasn’t unusual for a girl at her school in Boldon, a village outside of Newcastle, to go into science, though she was the first student from the school to go to Oxbridge. Now she researches the mechanisms controlling the eukaryotic cell cycle at Newcastle University. Her particular area of interest is in using X-ray crystallography to determine structures for the protein complexes that drive cell cycle progression. Jane received her heirloom jewellery from Neil Brockdorff from the University of Oxford on behalf of Louise Johnson, who died unexpectedly in 2012. “The one hundred per cent consensus is that Louise would have wanted her former colleague, Jane Endicott, to have the heirloom,” said Neil. Historically, Jane’s field of crystallography has
cell cycle were such that there was a very good
always been strongly represented by women.
spirit of sharing, openness and collaboration,
Jane thinks this is a result of having excellent
she says.”
mentors and role models, like Dorothy Hodgkin
Is she concerned about the low proportion of
and Louise Johnson, in the field early on. “The
women in leading positions in science? “Yes.
scientists who have shaped the attitudes of the
That’s worrying. There’s a whole cohort of very
fields of protein crystallography and eukaryotic
talented scientists who are being trained and not
12
