Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements and original sources
- Brief chronology
- Honours
- Introduction
- 1 A Quaker upbringing
- 2 How about studying insulin?
- 3 Radioactive sequencing of proteins and nucleic acids
- 4 Interview of Fred by the author in 1992: Early life
- 5 Interview of Fred by the author in 1992: Insulin and the Biochemistry Department, University of Cambridge
- 6 Interview of Fred by the author in 1992: Nucleic acids at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
- 7 Post-Sanger sequencing: high-throughput automated sequencing
- 8 Cancer: the impact of new-generation sequencing
- 9 Commentaries on Fred Sanger’s scientific legacy
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Complete bibliography of Fred Sanger
- Notes
- Index
- Plates
1 - A Quaker upbringing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements and original sources
- Brief chronology
- Honours
- Introduction
- 1 A Quaker upbringing
- 2 How about studying insulin?
- 3 Radioactive sequencing of proteins and nucleic acids
- 4 Interview of Fred by the author in 1992: Early life
- 5 Interview of Fred by the author in 1992: Insulin and the Biochemistry Department, University of Cambridge
- 6 Interview of Fred by the author in 1992: Nucleic acids at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
- 7 Post-Sanger sequencing: high-throughput automated sequencing
- 8 Cancer: the impact of new-generation sequencing
- 9 Commentaries on Fred Sanger’s scientific legacy
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Complete bibliography of Fred Sanger
- Notes
- Index
- Plates
Summary
Biography is perhaps one of the most difficult of all historical and literary ventures, because it involves not only the compilation of material and its understanding, but also an attempt, which can never be wholly satisfactory, to enter into the soul of the subject and to create an honest account of life as well as to present a portrait.
Cicely Crewdson, an elegant lady in her late thirties, was on holiday with her father at their family holiday home in the small village of Syde in the Cotswolds. Her holiday was nearly spoiled because she needed urgent treatment for a septic finger. Sepsis was potentially life-threatening in those days before effective antibiotics, such as penicillin, were available. The local doctor was summoned and agreed to come over from the nearby village of Rendcomb to treat Cicely. The doctor’s name was Frederick Sanger and he was still a bachelor. Her treatment would have needed a number of visits by this doctor to see how the patient’s finger was improving. Cicely Crewdson and Frederick Sanger got to know one another and doctor and patient were married in 1916.
We can only guess what attracted Frederick and Cicely to one another but Frederick would have been a quite suitable match for Cicely. Educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, he qualified as a doctor and completed his MD in 1902. Soon after he travelled to China as a missionary where he worked as a hospital doctor and found time, energy and enthusiasm to set up a new school for poorer children who were generally denied the education available for the children of the mandarin or upper-class families. Returning to Devon, his parent’s family home – probably for health reasons in 1912, Frederick then moved with his widowed mother, Ann, to Gloucestershire where he practised as the local doctor. His mother died shortly after the move in 1913.
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- Information
- Fred Sanger - Double Nobel LaureateA Biography, pp. 1 - 8Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014