Norman Pirie

Norman Wingate "Bill" Pirie ( born July 1, 1907 in Torrance, Stirlingshire, † March 29, 1997 in Harpenden, Hertfordshire ) was a British biochemist and virologist.

He was the son of the animal painter Sir George Pirie. He studied biochemistry at Gowland Hopkins at Cambridge University ( Emmanuel College) and was there after graduation 1932-1940 demonstrator. Here he met with Frederick Bawden and began to care for plant viruses. The collaboration lasted until the death of Bawden 1972. Bawden He followed the Rothamsted Experimental Station 1940 in Harpenden where they were able to isolate several plant viruses in crystalline form, including the tobacco mosaic virus ( TMV). They discovered that their genetic material consisted of RNA. They also examined the infectivity of viral RNA, but were then given negative results ( the proof was not until 1956). Crystals of TMV he demonstrated at a meeting of the Royal Society by its birefringence properties as suspensions in liquids ( effectively stirred up of goldfish ). 1947 to 1973 he headed the biochemistry department at Rothamsted.

From the late 1950s he studied in order to develop a new food source to the extraction of proteins from leaves. The work on it started in England as early as the Second World War. He and his team developed various machines to recycle leaves as a source of food that were tested in developing countries, however, found little acceptance. He then turned to the beta - carotene in leaves to his wife, the biochemists Antoinette Pirie. Again, the main goal was to developing countries, where lack of vitamin A led to blindness. He also published popular science essays among other things, the origin of life and space travel.

In 1949 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Copley Medal in 1971 and he received the Leeuwenhoek Lecture he gave in 1963.

He was married in 1931 to Antoinette (Tony) Pirie, who died in 1991. They had a son and a daughter.

Writings

• Food resources: conventional and novel, Penguin 1969
• Publisher protein food sources, Cambridge University Press 1975
• Publisher: Leaf protein: its agronomy, preparation, quality and use, Blackwell 1971
• Leaf protein and other aspects of fodder fractionation, Cambridge University Press 1978
• Leaf protein and its by-products in human and animal nutrition, Cambridge University Press 1987