British-born Canadian scientist
Anthony James Pawson CH, OC, OOnt, FRS, FRSC (18 October 1952 – 7 August 2013[1]) was a British-born Canadian scientist.[2]
Biography
Born in Maidstone, England,[1] the son of the sportsman and writer Tony Pawson, and botanist and high-school teacher Hilarie, he was the eldest of three children.[3] He was educated at Winchester College[4] and Clare College, Cambridge, where he received an MA in biochemistry followed by a PhD from King's College London in 1976. From 1976 to 1980 he pursued postdoctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1981 to 1985, he was Assistant Professor in microbiology at the University of British Columbia.[5]
Pawson was a Distinguished Investigator and former Director of Research at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto both of which he joined in 1985.
Pawson died on 7 August 2013 of unspecified causes at the age of 60.[6][7][8][2]
Research
Pawson's research revolutionised the understanding of signal transduction, the molecular mechanisms by which cells respond to external cues, and how they communicate with each other. He identified the phosphotyrosine-binding Src homology 2 (SH2 domain) as the prototypic non-catalytic interaction module. SH2 domains serve as a model for a large family of protein modules that act together to control many aspects of cellular signalling. Since the discovery of SH2 domains, hundreds of different modules have been identified in many proteins.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]
