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Black and white photograph of Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald examining a scientific sample in a pipette.

In 2015, in connection with our Athena Swan Bronze Award, for which we now have been awarded Silver, the Department started a new annual lecture series to be held in honour of Mabel FitzGerald, the first of which was given by Professor Dame Linda Partridge FRS on "The Science of Healthy Ageing". 

The 2016 Lecture, "Wiring the brain: RNA-based mechanism of axon guidance and survival" was delivered by Professor Christine Holt FRS.

The 2017 Lecture, "Pain and the Developing Brain" was delivered by Professor Maria Fitzgerald FRS. See "Mabel FitzGerald Lecture 2017" for more information.

The 2018 Lecture, "Mass Spectrometry - from folding proteins to rotating motors", was given on Tuesday 20 February by Professor Dame Carol Robinson FRS. See "Dame Carol Robinson gives lecture in honour of Mabel Fitzgerald" for more information.

The 2019 Mabel FitzGerald Lecture, "Neuronal calcium channel trafficking and function: relevance to chronic pain", was given by Professor Annette C. Dolphin FRS from the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology at University College Londonon Monday 21 January. See "Professor Annette Dolphin FRS gives the 2019 Mabel FitzGerald lecture" for more information.

The 2020 Prize Lecture, "Differential Resilience to Perturbation of Circuits with Similar Performance", was delivered by Professor Eve Marder from Brandeis University on Monday 24 February. See "Professor Eve Marder delivers the 2020 Mabel FitzGerald Prize Lecture" for more information.

The 2021 Mabel FitzGerald Prize Lecture "Designing materials to heal the body and detect diseases earlier" was given by Professor Molly Stevens, FREng FRS from Imperial College London, on Friday 3 December 2021. See "Molly Stevens FRS delivers 2021 Mabel FitzGerald Prize Lecture" for more information.

The 2022 Mabel FitzGerald Lecture "Epigenetic inheritance – models and mechanisms" was given by Professor Anne C. Ferguson-Smith FRS FMedSci from the University of Cambridge and the Genetics Society, on Tuesday 22 November 2022. See "Anne C. Ferguson-Smith FRS delivers 2022 Mabel FitzGerald Prize Lecture" for more information.

The 2023 lecture, 'Structures to Function: Some Stories from the Cell Surface', was given by Professor E. Yvonne Jones on 23 January 2024

BIOGRAPHY

Mabel FitzGerald has been all but forgotten in the study of human acclimatisation to high altitude. Her great scientific accomplishment was to demonstrate, over the long term, that it is oxygen, and not carbon dioxide, that determines how hard we breathe and sets the haemoglobin concentration in our blood. This she did by travelling around Colorado, USA in 1911, as part of the University of Oxford Laboratory of Physiology’s landmark Pike’s Peak Expedition, making detailed physiological measurements of the populations living at different altitudes throughout the state.

Mabel FitzGerald had a middle-class upbringing, but her life abruptly changed in 1895 when both her parents died. She came to live in Oxford with her four sisters in 1896 in a house in Crick Road, just north of the University Parks, next door to John Scott Haldane, then a Demonstrator in the Laboratory of Physiology. FitzGerald was fascinated by physiology and her local doctor recommended a career in the medical sciences. The University permitted her to attend Physiology classes informally under Gustav Mann from 1896-1899. She gained top marks in the examinations, but these could not count towards a degree because women could not be officially enrolled. In 1897, FitzGerald started her first research position with Francis Gotch and Gustav Mann at the Laboratory of Physiology, where she developed an expertise in histology. Her histological work on tissue response at vaccination sites was included in a manuscript published by Mann in 1899.

After her studies, FitzGerald became the Laboratory Technician to John Scott Haldane in the Laboratory of Physiology and by 1905 was named on one of his papers. She came to the attention of Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine at the time, who recommended her for a Rockerfeller research grant, which she won in 1907. This grant took her to the USA where she conducted pioneering research. In 1911, she returned to Oxford and became part of an expedition to Pike’s Peak, Colorado, led by Haldane and C. G Douglas, to examine the effects of low atmospheric pressure on respiration. Their discoveries revolutionised current ideas about respiration.

She was “rediscovered” by accident in the 1960s, still living in her house in Crick Road. With the help of the then Regius Professor of Medicine, Sir Richard Doll, the University of Oxford finally bestowed an honorary Master of Arts degree on her in 1972 – the first centenarian to receive one. Sir Richard wrote that her example first convinced Oxford “that women can do as well as men”. On bestowing the degree, the then Vice Chancellor, Alan Bullock, acknowledged that it had come three-quarters of a century too late.

Based on her pioneering work in Colorado, Mabel FitzGerald became only the second female member of the American Physiological Society in 1913, but it was not until 1973 that she was made an honorary member of the British Physiological Society. She was then the American Physiological Society’s oldest living member.

Download "Mabel's normalcy: Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald and the study of man at altitude" for more information (PDF)

View more pictures of Mabel's life.

LIST OF SPEAKERS and talk titles

2022 - Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith // Epigenetic inheritance – models and mechanisms

2021 - Professor Molly Stevens // Designing materials to heal the body and detect diseases earlier

2020 - Professor Eve Marder // Differential Resilience to Perturbation of Circuits with Similar Performance

2019 - Professor Annette C. Dolphin // Neuronal calcium channel trafficking and function: relevance to chronic pain

2018 - Professor Dame Carol Robinson // Mass spectrometry - from folding proteins to rotating motors

2017 - Professor Maria Fitzgerald // Pain and the Developing Brain

2016 - Professor Christine Holt // Wiring the brain: RNA-based mechanism of axon guidance and survival

2015 - Professor Dame Linda Partridge // The Science of Healthy Ageing

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