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Mawer [née Entwistle], (Elizabeth) Barbara (1936–2006), was a biochemist renown for her work on vitamin D metabolism and metabolic bone disease. Her research with William Stanbury showed that patients with renal disease are unable to make 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, and are thus unable to absorb enough calcium from the gut to make their bones mineralize properly.

Early life
Barbara Mawer (née Entwistle) was born on 6 March 1936 at 82 Sandy Lane, Blackburn, Lancashire. She was the elder daughter of Thomas Entwistle, schoolmaster, and his wife, Gladys Mary (née Cornall) and was educated at Blackburn High School for Girls and Queen Mary School, Lytham St Anne's. Following a visit to a chemistry lab with her father aged ten she realised that she wanted to follow a career in chemistry.

Education
Mawer studied Biochemistry at Edinburgh University, where she was inspired by Prof. Guy Marrian on studiyng medicinal chemistry and was awarded a PhD in 1961 for a thesis entitled ‘The metabolism of cholesterol in the animal body’.

Career
Mawer joined the University of Manchester as a research associate in 1967, after a period as an assistant lecturer in biochemistry at Edinburgh University (1958–63) and a short break to care for her young children. In manchester she collaborated with William Stanbury on vitamin D metabolism and metabolic bone disease. Vitamin D, produced in the skin by the action of sunlight or ingested from food, is converted into the hormonal form (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) by successive hydroxylation in the liver and kidneys. The signals it sends to the intestines increase the absorption of calcium and phosphorus; calcium absorption leads to the formation and maintenance of strong bones. Stanbury and Mawer were among the first clinical researchers to show that patients with renal disease were unable to make 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, and were thus unable to absorb enough calcium from the gut to make their bones mineralize properly.The deficiency can now be overcome with the use of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25D) as a drug.

Another significant contribution was to show that the enterohepatic recirculation of vitamin D had been overplayed, and that secondary (or primary) hyperparathyroidism led to over-consumption of the vitamin D precursors to 1,25D and the excretion in the bile of the hydroxylated waste products.

Further work led to the development of clinical assays for the measurement of vitamin D metabolites, and Barbara's laboratory became renowned for its contributions to the assay field.

In Manchester, Mawer was promoted successively to senior research fellow (1974), a north-west regional health authority senior research fellow (1983–93), reader in medicine (1993), and eventually to a personal chair as professor of bone and mineral metabolism in 1995.

From 1994 to 2001, she was director of the Supra-Regional Assay Service for the measurement of vitamin D metabolites, providing this service for the whole of the UK.

After Stanbury's retirement in 1983, she applied for funding to the Medical Research Council (MRC), indicating that she had been supported by it for many years. The council claimed never to have heard of her, as funding had gone to the professor. Mawer, a fine role model for women scientists working in clinical medicine, overcame this obstacle with her usual grit and determination.

Subsequently she enjoyed considerable funding success with her friend and colleague Mike Davies, running to almost £1m a year and enabling them to study basic and clinical aspects of vitamin D metabolism. The realization that 1,25D receptors in cell nuclei are to be found all over the body, including muscle and the brain, expanded the scope of their research. They were the first in the UK to demonstrate that macrophages from patients with pseudovitamin D deficiency rickets lack any detectable 1-hydroxylase activity when compared to unaffected individuals, owing to novel mutations in their P450c1 gene. Further work led to the development of clinical assays for the measurement of vitamin D metabolites, and Mawer's laboratory became renowned for its contributions to the assay field.

Mawer was a highly influential figure in the calcium homoeostasis field in the UK. She was an outstanding secretary, then president (1992–4) of the Bone and Tooth Society, and deputy director of the Bone Disease Research Centre at Manchester for its first three years (1994–7). She was honoured with a career achievement award from her colleagues at the Eleventh International Vitamin D Workshop in Nashville in 2000. She retired from the university in 2001.

Personal life
In 1957 Mawer married George Mawer, a doctor and clinical pharmacologist. They had three daughters, Deborah, Vanessa, and Rebecca. Mawer was also active in local politics, serving as a parish councillor and chair of school governors at Thelwall, near Warrington. She became leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition group (1991–2004) in Warrington borough council, to which she was elected in 1987. ]#

Mawer was also very interested in education, the environment, planning, regeneration, and protecting the rights of individuals, and represented Warrington council on the north-west regional assembly.

Her first marriage ended in an amicable divorce, and on 2 May 1981 she married Clifford Gordon (Cliff) Taylor, a research chemist ten years her junior.

Death and legacy
To the community of researchers around the globe studying bone and mineral metabolism Mawer was an elegant figure with a quiet, unassuming, but firm demeanour. Those who worked with her learned to fear her no-nonsense style, but appreciated her sense of humour and unconditional support. Shortly before her death the Bone Research Society established an annual travelling fellowship in her name to support laboratory work by its members. She died in the Christie Hospital, Manchester, on 7 March 2006, after a brave battle with liver cancer. She was survived by her husband, Cliff, and by the three daughters of her first marriage.