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June Sutor

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June Sutor
Born
Dorothy June Sutor

(1929-06-06)6 June 1929
Auckland, New Zealand
Died27 May 1990(1990-05-27) (aged 60)
London, England
Alma materAuckland University College (MSc, PhD)
Newnham College, Cambridge (PhD)
Known forC−H···:O hydrogen bonds
Scientific career
FieldsCrystallography
InstitutionsBirkbeck College
University College London
Thesis
Doctoral advisorsFrederick Llewellyn

Dorothy June Sutor (6 June 1929 – 27 May 1990) was a New Zealand-born crystallographer who spent most of her research career in England. She was one of the first scientists to establish that hydrogen bonds could form to hydrogen atoms bonded to carbon atoms. She later worked in the laboratory of Kathleen Lonsdale on the characterisation and prevention of urinary calculi.

Early life and education

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Sutor was born in New Zealand, in the Auckland suburb of Parnell, on 6 June 1929, the daughter of Victor Edward Sutor, a coach builder, and Cecilia Maud Sutor (née Craner).[1][2][3] She was educated at St Cuthbert's College,[4][5] and went on to study chemistry at Auckland University College.[1] She graduated Master of Science with first-class honours in 1952 and, supervised by Frederick Llewellyn, she graduated with her first PhD in 1954.[6] She published her first single-author Acta Crystallographica paper, The unit cell and space group of ethyl nitrolic acid, whilst a student.[7][8][9]

In 1954, Sutor went to the United Kingdom, and took up a travelling scholarship and Bathurst Studentship at Newnham College, Cambridge.[5] There, she earned a PhD on the structures of purines and nucleosides in 1958.[1][5] During her second doctorate, Sutor identified the structure of caffeine, and showed that it can readily recrystallise in its monohydrate form.[10][11]

Research and career

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Sutor moved to Australia in 1958, working as a research officer in Melbourne.[1][5] In 1959, she returned to Britain to take up an Imperial Chemical Industries Fellowship at Birkbeck College, where she worked with J. D. Bernal, Rosalind Franklin, and Aaron Klug on the application of X-ray crystallography in molecular biology.[1][12] She worked on hydrogen bonding and computational chemistry, writing programs for the EDSAC.[1] Sutor used the concept of electronegativity, introduced by Linus Pauling in 1932, to explain hydrogen bonds.[1] She investigated the Van der Waals distances that are shortened during hydrogen bonding, and based on her findings proposed that a C–H group that is activated by partial ionization can take part in hydrogen bonding (so called C-H···O bonds).[13][14] She investigated the structure of theacrine, DNA and other purine compounds.[1] In 1962, Sutor published the first crystallographic evidence for C-H ⋯O bonding.[7] Her work expanded from small-molecule crystal structures to alkaloids.[7]

Her work was criticised by Jerry Donohue, who disputed her Van der Waals distances and claimed that she had data problems. At the time, Donohue's textbooks were in most laboratories, and he was a common reviewer for academic papers including crystal structures.[1] Carl Schwalbe has speculated that this could have been due to academic jealousy, saying in 2019 that "acceptance of women in science, particularly the physical sciences, was by no means complete".[1][7]

Sutor moved back to New Zealand and worked briefly in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (New Zealand) before taking leave to look after her father, who died in 1964.[1][15] In 1966, Sutor was offered a job by Kathleen Lonsdale at University College London. She studied urinary calculi and searched for ways to prevent them.[1][16][17] Sutor had good contacts with hospital staff, and even managed to secure Napoléon III's bladder stone. She was supported by a grant from the Nuffield Foundation.[1] In 1979, Sutor became partially sighted, and more "interested in the theoretical aspects of stone growth".[7][18]

Death and legacy

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Sutor died of cancer in London on 27 May 1990.[1] She bequeathed her estate of over £500,000 for the establishment of June Sutor Fellowships for research at Moorfields Eye Hospital into the prevention of blindness.[1]

Sutor's predictions on the hydrogen bond were confirmed by Robin Taylor and Olga Kennard in the 1980s.[19][20] Their work included 113 neutron diffraction patterns in the Cambridge Crystallographic Database, and found that Sutor's C–H⋯O bond distances were correct to within 0.03 Å (0.003 nm).[1] Gautam Radhakrishna Desiraju dedicated a chapter of his book on hydrogen bonds to the work of Sutor, and Carl Schwalbe compared the structures cited by Sutor to modern redeterminations.[21]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Extance, Andy (2 April 2019). "The forgotten female crystallographer who discovered C–H⋯O bonds". Chemistry World. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
  2. ^ "England & Wales, civil registration death index, 1916–2007". Ancestry.com Operations. 2007. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  3. ^ "Births". Auckland Star. 8 June 1929. p. 1. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  4. ^ "School prizes". Auckland Star. 13 December 1945. p. 7. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d "June Sutor 1929–1990" (PDF). All Saint's Church, Talbot Road, Highgate. July 1990. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  6. ^ "NZ University Graduates 1870-1961". Shadows of Time. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d e Schwalbe, Carl H. (1 July 2012). "June Sutor and the C–H ··· O hydrogen bonding controversy". Crystallography Reviews. 18 (3): 191–206. doi:10.1080/0889311X.2012.674945. ISSN 0889-311X. S2CID 96289568.
  8. ^ Sutor, D. J. (1953). "The unit cell and space group of ethyl nitrolic acid". Acta Crystallographica. 6 (10): 811. doi:10.1107/S0365110X53002350. ISSN 0365-110X.
  9. ^ "SCANZ | University of Auckland". scanz.iucr.org. Archived from the original on 7 July 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  10. ^ Sutor, D. J. (10 July 1958). "The structures of the pyrimidines and purines. VII. The crystal structure of caffeine". Acta Crystallographica. 11 (7): 453–458. doi:10.1107/S0365110X58001286. ISSN 0365-110X.
  11. ^ Kolehmainen, Erkki; Nonappa (2016). "Caffeine as a Gelator". Gels. 2 (1): 9. doi:10.3390/gels2010009. PMC 6318762. PMID 30674141.
  12. ^ Maslen, E.N., ed. (11 November 2013). World Directory of Crystallographers and of Other Scientists Employing Crystallographic Methods. Springer. ISBN 9789401737036. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  13. ^ June Sutor, D. (1962). "The C–H… O Hydrogen Bond in Crystals". Nature. 195 (4836): 68–69. Bibcode:1962Natur.195...68J. doi:10.1038/195068a0. ISSN 1476-4687. S2CID 4179976.
  14. ^ Sutor, D. June (1 January 1963). "204. Evidence for the existence of C–H⋯O hydrogen bonds in crystals". Journal of the Chemical Society (Resumed): 1105–1110. doi:10.1039/JR9630001105. ISSN 0368-1769.
  15. ^ "Burial & cremation details". Purewa Cemetery and Crematorium. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  16. ^ Wooley, Susan E.; Sutor, D. June (1 January 1971). "A statistical survey of the composition of gallstones in eight countries". Gut. 12 (1): 55–64. doi:10.1136/gut.12.1.55. ISSN 0017-5749. PMC 1411468. PMID 5543374.
  17. ^ Hermon Dowling, R.; Rose, G. Alan; June Sutor, D. (29 May 1971). "Hyperoxaluria and Renal Calculi in Ileal Disease". The Lancet. Originally published as Volume 1, Issue 7709. 297 (7709): 1103–1106. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(71)91840-X. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 4102626.
  18. ^ June Sutor, D. (1 January 1981). "Crystal growth in bile". Progress in Crystal Growth and Characterization. 4 (1): 47–57. doi:10.1016/0146-3535(81)90047-2. ISSN 0146-3535.
  19. ^ Taylor, Robin; Kennard, Olga (1 September 1984). "Hydrogen-bond geometry in organic crystals". Accounts of Chemical Research. 17 (9): 320–326. doi:10.1021/ar00105a004. ISSN 0001-4842.
  20. ^ Taylor, Robin; Kennard, Olga (1 September 1982). "Crystallographic evidence for the existence of CH.cntdot..cntdot..cntdot.O, CH.cntdot..cntdot..cntdot.N and CH.cntdot..cntdot..cntdot.Cl hydrogen bonds". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 104 (19): 5063–5070. doi:10.1021/ja00383a012. ISSN 0002-7863.
  21. ^ Desiraju, Gautam R. (1 January 1996). "The C−H···O Hydrogen Bond: Structural Implications and Supramolecular Design". Accounts of Chemical Research. 29 (9): 441–449. doi:10.1021/ar950135n. ISSN 0001-4842. PMID 23618410.
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