Robinson wins award from Royal Society

Professor Carol Robinson is a world leader in the field of mass spectrometry, a technique traditionally used for measuring the mass of individual molecules. Professor Robinson' s research has applied the process to study interactions of proteins.

She was given the award in recognition both of the quality of her science and her remarkable career providing an alternative role model to the conventional route. As the winner, Professor Robinson receives £30,000 and will also deliver a lecture at the Royal Society later this year. She will use part of the prize money to fund a mentoring project to support women in careers in science, engineering and technology (SET).

The Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award was set up in 2003, at the suggestion of Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, to address the issue of under-representation of women in SET and is open to mid-career scientists who have developed an area of science with which they are identified. Nominees must propose a project that will raise the profile of women in SET in either their host institution or field of expertise. The award is funded by the Government's Office of Science and Technology as part of its efforts to promote women in SET.

Professor Robinson has carried out pioneering work to understand how chains of amino acids form folded proteins and subsequently interact with other molecules. More recently, becoming frustrated with the limits of what mass spectrometry could achieve, she was instrumental in extending the abilities of the equipment to study much larger groups of proteins.