Background
Born in Maidstone, England, the son of the cricketer and writer Tony Pawson, and botanist and high-school teacher Hilarie, he was the eldest of three children.
university professor molecular biologist
Born in Maidstone, England, the son of the cricketer and writer Tony Pawson, and botanist and high-school teacher Hilarie, he was the eldest of three children.
He was educated at Winchester College and Clare College, Cambridge where he received a Master of Arts in biochemistry followed by a Doctor of Philosophy from King"s College London in 1976.
He identified the phosphotyrosine-binding Src homology 2 (SH2 domain) as the prototypic non-catalytic interaction module. SH2 domains serve as a model for a large family of protein modules that act together to control many aspects of cellular signaling. Since the discovery of SH2 domains, hundreds of different modules have been identified in many proteins.
From 1976 to 1980 he pursued postdoctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley.
From 1981 to 1985, he was Assistant Professor in microbiology at the University of British Columbia. Pawson was a Distinguished Investigator and former Director of Research at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto both of which he joined in 1985.
Pawson died on August 7, 2013 of unspecified causes, at the age of 60. 1994 Gairdner Foundation International Award.
Royal Society; National Academy of Sciences.