In Memoriam

In memoriam: Doris Nicholls

ASBMB Today Staff
Aug. 15, 2022

Doris McEwan Nicholls, who helped develop the study of biosciences at York University and had been a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since 1975, died Aug. 17, 2021, the ASBMB learned recently. She was 94.

York University Libraries, Clara Thomas Archives
Doris Nicholls in 1987

Born Jan. 24, 1927, in Bayfield, Ontario, to Fred and Ellen McEwan, Nicholls excelled academically from an early age. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in botany, an MD, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry, all from the University of Western Ontario.

Doris McEwan met her future husband, Ralph Nicholls, a physics professor, when a water leak in her lab overflowed into his lab, according to a memorial article on the YFile website. In 1965, the two were recruited to help establish York University in Toronto where they both taught and conducted research into the 2000s.

Doris Nicholls studied numerous topics over the course of her long career. In the 1950s she published on how the adrenal gland, which produces hormones including adrenaline, aldosterone and cortisol, responded to cold stress. In the 1960s, an interest in kidney function led her to study how protein synthesis and phosphate metabolism changed in kidney disease. By the early 1970s she was conducting fractionation and reintroduction experiments to identify protein factors that are important for translation; her lab identified a termination factor that was overexpressed in a mouse model of muscular dystrophy and also explored the ways that exposure to pesticides such as DDT upregulates protein synthesis. In the 1980s and 1990s she investigated the effects of exposure to heavy metals on various tissues, with particular interest in how lead, cadmium and aluminum exposure changed mRNA expression and protein synthesis.

Nicholls mentored many graduate students and was considered an intelligent and caring professor. Ron Pearlman, an emeritus professor, described her as a colleague “who in her quiet but important way made strong contributions … to the development of the molecular biosciences at York.” 

An excellent cook and baker who prepared her three daily meals from scratch until her last days, Nicholls was also known for her ability to “recall a litany of facts on many subjects as well as names and places with a ferocity that was unparalleled,” the article states, and all her life remained “compassionate, fun-loving and caring with an infectious laugh that seemed too big for her tiny frame.”

 
 

Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?

Become a member to receive the print edition four times a year and the digital edition monthly.

Learn more
ASBMB Today Staff

This article was written by a member or members of the ASBMB Today staff.

Related articles

2025 PROLAB awardees announced
Marissa Locke Rottinghaus
Daniel N. Hebert (1962–2024)
Ineke Braakman, Maurizio Molinari, Reid Gilmore & Lila Gierasch

Get the latest from ASBMB Today

Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.

Latest in People

People highlights or most popular articles

Hope for a cure hangs on research
Essay

Hope for a cure hangs on research

July 17, 2025

Amid drastic proposed cuts to biomedical research, rare disease families like Hailey Adkisson’s fight for survival and hope. Without funding, science can’t “catch up” to help the patients who need it most.

Before we’ve lost what we can’t rebuild: Hope for prion disease
Feature

Before we’ve lost what we can’t rebuild: Hope for prion disease

July 15, 2025

Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel, a husband-and-wife team racing to cure prion disease, helped develop ION717, an antisense oligonucleotide treatment now in clinical trials. Their mission is personal — and just getting started.

ASBMB members recognized as Allen investigators
Member News

ASBMB members recognized as Allen investigators

July 14, 2025

Ileana Cristea, Sarah Cohen, Itay Budin and Christopher Obara are among 14 researchers selected as Allen Distinguished Investigators by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

AI can be an asset, ASBMB educators say
Advice

AI can be an asset, ASBMB educators say

July 9, 2025

Pedagogy experts share how they use artificial intelligence to save time, increase accessibility and prepare students for a changing world.

ASBMB undergraduate education programs foster tomorrow’s scientific minds
Feature

ASBMB undergraduate education programs foster tomorrow’s scientific minds

July 8, 2025

Learn how the society empowers educators and the next generation of scientists through community as well as accreditation and professional development programs that support evidence-based teaching and inclusive pedagogy.

Honors for Gagna and Sundquist
Member News

Honors for Gagna and Sundquist

July 7, 2025

Claude Gagna is being honored for the diagnostic tool he developed that uses AI to streamline diagnostics. Wesley Sundquist is being honored for his role in finding that HIV’s capsid was a target for treatment.