Audrey Jane Gibson (née Pinsent; October 5, 1924 – June 10, 2008) was a British-American microbiologist and biochemist who worked in the field of photosynthetic bacteria.
She attended The Maynard School in Exeter, England and went on to earn a first-class honours degree in biochemistry at Newnham College, Cambridge in 1946 under the advisory of biochemist, Marjory Stephenson.
[4] Whilst based at the Lister Institute in 1954, Gibson published her discovery that the trace element selenium, along with molybdenum, is an essential requirement for bacterial growth, specifically the production of formate dehydrogenase in coliform bacteria (e.g. Escherichia coli).
[2][4][5][6] Following receipt of a postgraduate fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund, Gibson then spent a year working with C. B. van Niel at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University in California where she developed an interest in photosynthetic bacteria.
[5] Her research focused on the transport and utilization of ammonia and other small organic compounds by the main groups of phototrophic bacteria, and she became expert in their care and culture.
[2][9] In the latter part of her career, Gibson utilized the purple non-sulfur bacterium, Rhodopseudomonas palustris, to study the anaerobic degradation of the benzene ring, a significant step in the breakdown of polluting hydrocarbons in the environment.
Jane Gibson taught summer microbiology courses at the Marine Biological Laboratory, whilst her husband collected fish blood for his research at Cornell University.