Ruth van Heyningen obituary

Biochemist and ophthalmologist whose research concentrated on the formation of cataracts

Ruth van Heyningen, who has died aged 101, was a pioneering explorer of ophthalmic biochemistry, a field to which she made major contributions after she joined the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology, at Oxford University, in 1951.

Her research, much of which was carried out in collaboration with the laboratory's then director, Antoinette (Tony) Pirie, was focused on the lens, in particular the biochemical pathways involved in the formation of cataracts. Tony and Ruth wrote a key book together, Biochemistry of the Eye (1956), which Ruth later said included almost everything that was known about the subject at that time.

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