Alexander George Ogston

Alexander George Ogston FAA FRS^[1] (30 January 1911 – 29 June 1996) was a biochemist who specialised in the thermodynamics of biological systems.^[2] He was particularly interested in connective tissue and the use of physico-chemical methods to study the size, weight and structure of molecules. He made the "three-point attachment" contribution to stereochemistry. His grandfather was Sir Alexander Ogston, a Scottish surgeon.^[2]

Life

Ogston was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. Apart from a period as Freedom Research Fellow at the London Hospital, he spent most of his career at Oxford, being appointed Demonstrator (1938) and Reader (1955) in Biochemistry, and Fellow and Tutor in Physical Chemistry at Balliol (1937). In 1959 he took up an appointment as Professor of Physical Biochemistry at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, Canberra, where he remained until 1970, when he returned to Oxford as President of Trinity College. On his retirement in 1978, he held visiting fellowships at the Institute for Cancer Research, Philadelphia and the John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU. Ogston was elected FRS in 1955,^[1] and was awarded the Davy Medal in 1986.

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