Catalogue description Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of MALCOLM DIXON FRS (1899 - 1985)

SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL NCUACS 23.8.90/A.1 - NCUACS 23.8.90/A. 7

SECTION B RESEARCH NCUACS 23.8.90/B.1 - NCUACS 23.8.90/B.153

SECTION C CAMBRIDGE NCUACS 23.8.90/C.1 - NCUACS 23.8.90/C. 94

SECTION D LECTURES AND PUBLICATIONS NCUACS 23.8.90/D.1 - NCUACS 23.8.90/D. 88

SECTION E SOCIETIES AND ORGANISATIONS NCUACS 23.8.90/E.1 - NCUACS 23.8.90/E. 99

SECTION F CORRESPONDENCE NCUACS 23.8.90/F.1 - NCUACS 23.8.90/F. 73

The material is presented in the order given in the List of Contents. The collection is particularly strong in documentation of Dixon's scientific research, his enzyme nomenclature work for IUB and the various editions of Enzymes.

Section A, Biographical, is very slight but includes Dixon's autobiographical notes and bibliography

Section B, Research, is one of the most important in the collection. There is a sequence of notebooks covering a period of over fifty years from 1917. Of particular interest, for example, are the books used for notes of the lectures of J Barcroft, T S Hele, F G Hopkins and R A Peters and for wartime research by Dixon and his collaborators R van Heyningen, J A Cohen and D M M Needham. The wartime research is also represented by an extensive correspondence, committee papers and the research reports of Dixon's group.

Section C, Cambridge, provides interesting documentation of the Biochemistry Department. There is material relating to the Subdepartment of Enzyme Biochemistry, staff meetings and committees, teaching and requests to visit and work with Dixon.

Section D, Lectures and Publications, brings together Cambridge biochemistry lecture notes, informal research talks, invitation and public lectures and extensive documentation for Enzymes. The Enzymes material is principally correspondence with the publisher (Longmans) for the three editions, E C Webb for a period of nearly 20 years from 1962 when he moved from Cambridge to Australia, and scientific colleagues generally.

Section E, Societies and Organisations, is dominated by papers relating to the IUB Commission on Enzymes which include correspondence, minutes of meetings and the series of numbered documents circulated to Commission members. There are also later IUB enzyme nomenclature papers sent to Dixon for information.

Section F, Correspondence, does not include extensive exchanges with individuals and has accordingly been arranged in a chronological sequence 1946-78. There is also a references and recommendations subsection which is subject to restricted assess.

Compiled by Peter Harper and Timothy E. Powell

The work of the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and organisations:

The Biochemical Society

The British Library

British Telecom

The Geological Society

The Institute of Physics

Pilkington plc

Rolls-Royce plc

The Royal Society

The Royal Society of Chemistry

The Society of Chemical Industry

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very grateful to Dr Thorne for making the papers available and to Dr Elizabeth Leedham-Green, Cambridge University Library, for advice and encouragement.

Dixon, Malcolm, 1899-1985, scientist and biochemist

NOT ALL THE MATERIAL IN THE COLLECTION IS YET AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION. ENQUIRIES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO:

THE KEEPER OF MANUSCRIPTS

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

CAMBRIDGE

The papers were received in March 1990 from Dr C J R Thorne, Biochemistry Department, Cambridge.

OUTLINE OF THE CAREER OF M DIXON

Malcolm Dixon was born in Cambridge in 1899. He was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge and privately, and went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1917 to read for the Natural Sciences Tripos, Part II of which he took in 1921. He then came under the influence of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins and began research on the biochemistry of enzymes at Cambridge, a topic to which he devoted most of his research career. He was appointed University Demonstrator in 1923 and Lecturer in 1928.

During the Second World War Dixon directed a research group studying the chemical reactions of poison gases. At the end of the war his standing in enzymology was recognised by the creation of a Subdepartment of Enzyme Biochemistry in the Cambridge Biochemistry Department with Dixon as Director; he was also promoted to Reader in Enzyme Biochemistry by the University. He had already been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1942.

In 1956 Dixon was appointed Chairman of the International Union of Biochemistry (IUB) Commission on Enzymes, which considered questions of nomenclature. It reported successfully in 1961. In 1958 he published (in collaboration with E C Webb) the comprehensive treatise Enzymes. Second and third editions of this internationally authoritative work followed in 1964 and 1979. Dixon was appointed Professor of Enzyme Biochemistry on 1 January 1966 and retired nine months later. He died on 7 December 1985 aged 86.

For a full account of the life and career of Dixon see R N Perham's Royal Society memoir (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 34, 1988).

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