death_date awards nationality birth_date image article_title name alma_mater
15 july 1974 brunton memorial prize british 20 august 1902 janet simpson ferguson niven -lrb- 1902-1974 -rrb- . jpg janet niven
 janet niven university of glasgow
janet niven

janet simpson ferguson niven fcpath , -lrb- 20 august 1902 -- 15 july 1974 -rrb- was a british histologist and pathologist .
janet niven graduated from the university of glasgow with a first class bachelor of medicine and surgery degree in 1925 .
she was the first woman to win the brunton memorial prize , awarded to the most distinguished medical graduate each year .
during her time working at the university of glasgow , she was awarded the faulds research fellowship -lrb- 1924 - 1928 -rrb- ; the mccunn scholarship -lrb- 1928 - 1940 -rrb- ; and the carnegie research fellowship -lrb- 1940 - 1942 -rrb- .
in 1932 she was awarded an md for her research on tissue culture and became a lecturer in the pathology department -lrb- 1932-1946 -rrb- as well as working as an assistant pathologist at the western infirmary .
in 1967 , she was awarded an honorary ll.d by the university of glasgow , traditionally awarded for a portfolio of advanced research .
during the second world war , niven joined the royal army medical corps as a pathologist and rose to the rank of major .
her work included the preparation of viruses to study common diseases and vaccine against scrub fever for the soldiers .
in 1947 , she moved to the mrc national institute for medical research -lrb- nimr -rrb- , first working in the division of bacteriology and virus research and then becoming head of the laboratory of cytopathology .
she is known for her contribution to the development of safety testing procedures for polio vaccines used in the united kingdom .
she published many research papers on the host response to microbial and virus infections , on the recognition and characterisation of particular animal and human pathogens and on the development and exploitation of fluorescence microscopy for the study of cellular and viral nucleic acids .
she retired from nimr in 1967 and her obituary called her ' a world authority on certain aspects of virus diseases ' .
