Professor Christiane Timmel

Winner: 2020 Tilden Prize

University of Oxford

For seminal contributions to the fields of spin chemistry and electron paramagnetic resonance.

Celebrate Professor Christiane Timmel

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I have never published a paper as a sole author. I would not wish it any other way. For me science, like life, is best if you struggle to get there as a team.

Professor Timmel investigates spin-polarised radical pairs and their magnetic sensitivity. In this field of Spin Chemistry, her main focus has been centred on the study of the radical pair mechanism, speculated to lie at the heart of avian (night migratory) magnetoreception.

Fascinatingly, the formation of pairs of radicals inside the blue-light sensitive protein, cryptochrome, located in the bird’s retina is thought to lie at the heart of the phenomenon of magnetoreception. Using optical spectroscopy, Professor Timmel and her team have been able to show that the application of weak magnetic fields can indeed affect the yield of the reactions between light induced radicals inside cryptochrome proteins. Moreover, they have demonstrated the first so-called chemical compass which allows the determination of a magnetic field direction read out via the yield of a chemical reaction.

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Professor Christiane Timmel was born in Saxony, Germany, where she also studied for her undergraduate degree in chemistry at the Technische Universität Dresden. She moved to England and the University of Oxford for her doctorate research. Her work was supervised by Peter Hore who inspired in her a real fascination with the phenomenon of spin and taught her invaluable tools to tackle theoretical problems in both Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (also Electron Spin Resonance, ESR) and Spin Chemistry.

Supported by the Royal Society first as a Dorothy Hodgkin and later a University Research Fellow, Professor Timmel moved into experimental science. Continuing in the footsteps of Keith McLauchlan she investigates spin-polarised radical pairs and their magnetic sensitivity. In this field of Spin Chemistry, her main focus has been centred on the study of the radical pair mechanism, speculated to lie at the heart of avian (night migratory) magnetoreception. In 2007, she cofounded Oxford’s Centre of Advanced Electron Spin Resonance (CAESR). In ESR as in Spin Chemistry, the study of spin polarised states such as spin-correlated radical pairs and molecular triplets is the main focus of her work.

Professor Timmel is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a fellow of New College (Oxford). In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the 欧美AV (F欧美AV) and, the same year, took up her position as Chair of the 欧美AV ESR group.

Q+A

Who or what has inspired you?

I grew up with a mathematician father and a chemist mother. Both loved their respective disciplines and respected each other highly. Neither insisted on me following in their footsteps. However, they inspired in me a love for the natural sciences as well as mathematics. Whenever I approached them for help, they gave their time generously, never looking at the clock. They were both exceptional teachers whose love for their subjects was infectious, their patience in explaining admirable. They left me to my own devices even when I was slow to make progress yet determined to get there. Offering me constant encouragement while fostering independence, they allowed me to develop both the self-confidence and tools necessary to study a physical science. Most importantly though, their passion for their respective subjects was a clear indicator that science is both fun and important.

Why do you think teamwork is important in science?

I have never published a paper as a sole author. I would not wish it any other way. For me science, like life, is best if you struggle to get there as a team. If all goes well, you have arguments on the way as you test each other’s thoughts and hypotheses, ask for solid proof or indeed throw some crazy ideas in the ring to liven things up a bit. You argue and have to make up, but in the end, the resulting data has been scrutinised, criticised and tested, and interpretations are fine-tuned. And quite apart from that, it has been fun along the way. Even on days when the science might not go so well, you know together you will get it to work, if not today, then soon.

Why do you think interdisciplinary research and collaboration is important in science?

My research spans topics as diverse as molecular electronics and avian magnetoreception. I am an expert in neither the design of molecular wires nor the study of night-migratory birds. My expertise lies in the study of spin in magnetic fields using both ESR and optical spectroscopy. I rely fully on my colleagues to synthesise the supramolecular structures as well as to express proteins of migratory and non-migratory song-birds. I even rely on the expertise of collaborators within in chemistry – theoreticians and other spectroscopists with a deeper insight into high finesse cavities for high sensitivity detection. Yet, they also place their trust in me. Not only does that lead to work which simply could not be done by a single group, let alone a single researcher, but it has all the advantages of team work: different angles from which to attack a problem, discussion, argument, questioning, criticism, re-working, re-thinking, double checking, and finally hard-earned, solid consensus. And – like any teamwork – it has been fun along the way.

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