Research at the Dunn School
Newton became a doctoral student at the Dunn School in 1947 under Abraham’s supervision. They continued working together until Newton’s death in 1969. Their early research included antibacterial peptides such as bacitracin, followed by the isolation and structures of penicillin N and cephalosporin C.
Isolation and structural research
Newton and Abraham’s paper on the isolation of cephalosporin C appeared in the Biochemical Journal in 1956. It belonged to a programme already under way during the 1950s; the archival career account dates determination of the compound’s structure to 1959. Observing antibacterial activity in a culture, isolating its compounds and establishing their structures were different stages of that programme.
Research funds and a visiting chair
Some income from cephalosporin development went into the Guy Newton Research Fund. The later Newton–Abraham Visiting Professorship at Oxford also commemorated the collaboration between the two researchers.
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