National Institute for Medical Research NIMR

Following the completion of her Ph.D. in 1939, Henley accompanied Harington on his move to the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Hampstead. Her field of specialisation was iodoproteins, and her research on them over the rest of her career was to garner her worldwide fame. The Second World War disrupted her research, as she was seconded to various war-work projects. The last of these, helping the survivors at the liberation of a concentration camp, proved so traumatic that she became a heavy smoker, the probable cause of her death 25 years later. In 1952, she isolated the thyroid hormone, triiodothyronine. The discovery of this new and highly unusual hormone contributed largely to her election as Fellow of the Royal Society only two years later. 

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