Mary Ellen Jones

Mary Ellen Jones (December 25, 1922 – August 23, 1996) was an American biochemist. She was notable for discovery of carbamoyl phosphate, a chemical substance that is key to the biosynthesis of arginine and urea, and for the biosynthesis of pyrimidine nucleotides. Jones completed her studies in three years receiving her doctorate in 1951.

Upon receiving her Ph.D., Jones moved to Boston, where she did a postdoctoral fellowship with Fritz Lipmann in the Chemical Research Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. When the Department of Biochemistry was established at Brandeis University was established in 1957, she joined the faculty as an assistant professor, and was later promoted to associate professor.

By the time Jones joined Brandeis as a faculty member, she had published 13 papers: two from when she was a technician at Armour, two more from her graduate work at Yale, plus another nine papers from her work in the Lipmann laboratory. She continued her prolific work at Brandeis while collaborating with Leonard Spector. The two continued to work on carbamoyl phosphate, identifying carbon dioxide or bicarbonate as the source for the initial activation step for carbamoyl phosphate formation. She was one of the first researchers to study multi-functional proteins, including working with the enzymes dihydroorotate synthase and uridine monophosphate synthase.

When Jones moved to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1966 as an associate professor, space in the biochemistry department was limited. She had to make do with room the basement of the zoology department.

Overall, her research into DNA, RNA, and mechanisms of metabolic pathways helped people to understand how cells divide and differentiate, which in turn helped researchers to understand the action of cancer cells.

Personal life

Mary Ellen Jones married Paul Munson in 1948 and divorced in 1971. They had two children: Ethan V. Munson (born 1956), currently an associate professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Catherine Munson (born 1960), currently a psychiatrist in Charlotte, North Carolina. She retired in 1995, soon after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer. She died in Waltham, Massachusetts, on August 23, 1996.

Notable awards and distinctions the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal from Yale University (1982) president of the Association of Medical School Departments of Biochemistry (1985) president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (1986) the North Carolina American Chemical Society Distinguished Chemist (1986) president of the American Association of University Professors (1988) the Thomas Jefferson Award from the University of North Carolina (1990) the Award in Science awarded by the state of North Carolina (1991) elected to the Institute of Medicine (1981) elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1984) elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991) elected to the American Philosophical Society (1994) an 11-story research center dedicated with her name at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill