Biography
Peter D. Mitchell was born in Mitcham, Surrey on 29 September 1920. His parents were Christopher Gibbs Mitchell, a civil servant, and Kate Beatrice Dorothy (née) Taplin. His Uncle was Sir Godfrey Way Mitchell, chairman of George Wimpey. He was educated at Queen's College, Taunton, and at Jesus College, Cambridge where he studied the Natural Sciences Tripos specialising in biochemistry.
He accepted a research post in the Department of Biochemistry, Cambridge, in 1942, and received the degree of Ph.D. in early 1951 for work on the mode of action of penicillin. In 1955 he was invited by Professor Michael Swann to set up a biochemical research unit, called the Chemical Biology Unit, in the Department of Zoology, Edinburgh University, where he was appointed to a Senior Lectureship in 1961, to a Readership in 1962, although ill health led to his resignation in 1963.
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