Tracy Palmer

Early life and education Palmer was born in Sheffield on 8 May 1967, the only child of Enid (née Wilson 1939-2000) and Roy Palmer 1936-2023 (a steelworker). Palmer was brought up in the steel town of Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire where she attended Stocksbridge High School. Palmer attended the University of Birmingham where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry in 1988 She was inspired by the work of Peter D. Mitchell and his work on chemiosmosis during her PhD. She was one of the co-discoverers of the bacterial Tat protein secretion system. The Tat system is highly unusual because it transports folded proteins of variable sizes across biological membranes while at the same time maintaining the impermeability of the membrane to ions.

Awards and honours Palmer was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018 for "substantial contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge". She was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) in 1996.