Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell’s first marriage was to Eileen Rollo in 1944. They couple had one daughter. The marriage, however, began to unravel within years and ended in divorce in 1954.

His second wife was Helen Robertson whom he wed in 1958.

He suffered from deafness and complications from a botched up surgery during his later years and died on 10 April 1992, at the age of 71.

Peter Dennis Mitchell was born on September 29, 1920, in Mitcham, Surrey, England to Christopher Gibbs Mitchell, a civil servant, and Kate Beatrice Dorothy (née) Taplin.

He received his primary education from local grammar schools and then went to the Queen’s College. He loved science and mathematics from a young age and excelled in these subjects. However, he ignored subjects like history and geography due to which he was unable to get excellent grades.

He appeared for the scholarship entrance examination at Cambridge but was unable to clear it. His headmaster Christopher Wiseman, who recognized Mitchell’s talent and potential, intervened and helped the young man get into Jesus College, Cambridge for the fall of 1939.

He studied physics, chemistry, physiology, and biochemistry for his Tripos I (first two years) and then biochemistry for his Tripos II (third year). He received second-class marks on his examinations but flourished in the Biochemistry Department under the guidance of Frederick Gowland Hopkins.

At Cambridge, he was appointed at a research post in the Department of Biochemistry in 1942 and performed war-related research under the supervision of James Danielli.

While working towards the completion of his doctorate in 1950, Peter Mitchell was appointed the Demonstrator at the Department of Biochemistry by the new head of the department, Frank Young. Mitchell was awarded a Ph.D. in early 1951 for his work on the mode of action of penicillin.

As a demonstrator, he worked in the Sub-Department of Microbiology. In 1955, he was invited by Professor Michael Swann to set up and direct a biochemical research unit, called the Chemical Biology Unit, in the Department of Zoology, Edinburgh University. Mitchell accepted the offer.

In 1961, he was appointed to a Senior Lectureship at the Edinburgh University and was promoted to a Readership the next year. Around this time, he started suffering from acute gastric ulcers which greatly interfered with his ability to do research. He took a leave of absence and resigned in 1963.

He did not perform any research from 1963 to 1965 but supervised the restoration of a Regency-fronted Mansion, known as Glynn House, at Cornwall. He redesigned a major part of it as a research laboratory and in collaboration with a former colleague, Jennifer Moyle, founded a charitable company known as Glynn Research Ltd. Mitchell became its director of research in 1964.

It was during the 1960s that he began his landmark research on chemiosmotic reactions and reaction systems. Years of intensive work in collaboration with his colleagues led to the discovery of the mechanism of ATP synthesis.

Peter Mitchell performed vital research in biochemistry and revolutionized the field with his discovery of the chemiosmotic mechanism of ATP synthesis. His chemiosmotic hypothesis provided the basis for understanding the actual process of oxidative phosphorylation.