Barbara Mawer

Elizabeth Barbara Mawer (née Entwistle, 6 March 1936 – 7 March 2006) was a British biochemist and medical researcher. She was regarded as a "highly influential figure in the calcium homoeostasis field".

Early life and education Barbara Entwistle was born on 6 March 1939 in Blackburn to Thomas Entwistle, a teacher, and Gladys Mary Entwistle (née Cornall). She attended Blackburn High School and Queen Mary School in Lytham St Annes. She received a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh in 1957. She stayed there to conduct research, supervised by Guy Marrian, and in 1961 received a PhD for her thesis entitled The metabolism of cholesterol in the animal body. From 1958 to 1963 she also worked as an assistant lecturer at Edinburgh. Stanbury retired that year, and when Mawer applied to the Medical Research Council for funding, they claimed not to know her, as previously Stanbury had received the funding. However, she would later succeed in receiving, with her colleague Mike Davies, funding of almost one million pounds per year to research the metabolism of vitamin D. She served as Warrington's representative on the North West Regional Assembly. She stepped down in 2004.

Personal life and death In 1957 she married George Mawer, a doctor and pharmacologist, with whom she had three daughters; they later divorced amicably. In 1981 she married Clifford Gordon Taylor, a research chemist.

Mawer died on 7 March 2006 at Christie Hospital in Manchester, having had liver cancer for two years. She left her daughters and her second husband.