Elizabeth Blackwell

          Elizabeth’s Blackwell’s story is one of great determination. She was originally born in England in 1821. When she was eleven years old, her family moved to the United States. Elizabeth’s parents strongly believed in equality for all and that all their children should be educated. At first, Elizabeth only wanted to teach. She couldn’t imagine herself becoming a physician. She hated the sight of illustrations of the human body in medical books. During Elizabeth’s teaching career, a friend of hers got sick and died. Her friend confided that if she had had a female doctor, her whole ordeal would’ve been less trying. It was then that Elizabeth was determined to be a doctor.

            Elizabeth applied to many colleges. All the colleges had rejected her, expect for Geneva Medical College in New York. She was admitted by the student body as a practical joke. They never imagined a woman would seriously consider being a doctor. Elizabeth came in with the determination to learn. She faced many challenges. She was forced to sit apart from her male peers. The townsfolk disapproved of a woman stepping out of the gender norm. Her professors were uncomfortable with a woman in their anatomy classes. During a class on reproduction, Elizabeth was asked to leave because it would be too much for a delicate woman. She stubbornly remained in the classroom. Elizabeth proved she was just as capable as her male peers, and she graduated in 1849 at the top of her class. Thus, she became the first woman in America to earn a medical degree.

            Elizabeth worked as a physician for a couple of years in London and Paris. In Paris, she was caring for a sick infant. She contracted the infection, causing her to lose sight in one eye. This was a hard blow for Elizabeth since she had wanted to become a surgeon. Now that was no longer an option. She soon returned to New York to continue improving the lives of others. She noticed that there were few opportunities for female physicians to practice. Elizabeth, her sister Emily (who also became a doctor), and Dr. Marie Zakrzewska opened the New Your Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Here, poor women could get the medical help they needed, while also providing jobs for female physicians. Elizabeth also founded the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary and the London School of Medicine for Women.  

            Elizabeth’s story was truly inspiring. She fought so hard for what she wanted, and she wasn’t about to let society pull her down just because she was a woman. She opened many door for women everywhere. She inspired other women to become doctors. She contributed so much, but it took a lot hard work. Sometimes it still takes a lot of hard work for a female scientist to be recognized. We’re fighters though, and the world better watch out.

Sources

“Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World,” written and illustrated by Rachael Ignotofsky

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell: https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_35.html

How Elizabeth Blackwell Became the First Female Doctor in the U.S.: https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_35.html

Barbara McClintock

          The 1900s was an exciting time for genetics. Mendel’s laws of inheritance were just beginning to take root in the realm of science. In the midst of the progression of genetics, there was Barbara McClintock. She was born in 1902. She was a bit of a tomboy. This made her an outcast with both the girls and boys she grew up around. She didn’t let it bother her too much. Barbara preferred being by herself and doing her schoolwork. Her teachers thought she was an exceedingly bright child, and they encouraged her to go on to college. With the support of her father, she eventually earned her PhD in botany at Cornell University in 1927.

Cornell marked the beginnings of her scientific career. Barbara absolutely loved genetics. It fascinated her to no end. In her first major research project, she worked with Harriet Creighton, and together they proved chromosomal crossover. Chromosomal crossover occurs sex cells. What happens is that genes are shuffled to make new combinations of genes. This is why organisms show different genetic variations from their fellow species. This process was theorized by Thomas Morgan, but Barbara and Harriet provided the first conclusive proof of chromosomal crossover. Barbara went on to work at the University of Missouri. Despite Barbara’s hard work and great skills as a geneticist, she never was truly accepted. Her male peers found her intimidating. Even her fashion, which mostly consisted of pants, was criticized. The dean of the university thought that Barbara should act like a “proper lady scientist” and get married. However, if she did, she would be fired. Barbara decided to leave Cornell to do research in Cold Spring Harbor in New York.

This is where Barbara’s life starts getting really exciting. She was studying corn genes. She was curious why is it that sometimes the kernels on the same corn were different colors. When she was researching this phenomenon, she found that the genes expressing the kernels color “jumped!” This was a huge discovery. Before this, it was thought that chromosomes were stable, and that the genes stayed in certain places. These jumping genes, or transposons, would cause relocations, insertions, and deletions. In the corn kernels, the relocation of certain genes would turn the purple color on or off. Barbara presented her research in 1951. Sadly, she was ahead of her time. No one understood her methods, so they didn’t take stock in her research. She didn’t mind too much. She believed in her results. It would take two decades for scientists to start taking her work seriously. She eventually won a Nobel Peace Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983. She lived her remaining years doing what she loved most; research.

As a female scientist, Barbara had to work hard to be accepted. Yet, acceptance was never truly her goal in life. She wanted to learn, and she wanted to set an example for young girls everywhere. She wanted to show them that it doesn’t matter what other people think. She wanted them to know that they were born to make history. Women continue to break boundaries. It’s amazing how far we have come, but we still have more work to do.

Sources

Barbara McClintock: http://www.famousscientists.org/barbara-mcclintock/

Barbara McClintock Facts: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1983/mcclintock-facts.html

 The Barbara McClintock Papers: https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Narrative/LL/p-nid/45

Alice Ball

           Since ancient times, leprosy has been viewed as one of the worst thing anyone count contract. Lepers were seen as unclean and were ostracized. Before the mid-1900s, leprosy was only vaguely understood. Leprosy (now called Hansen’s disease) is caused by a bacterial infection. Despite it's reputation, it's not as contagious as the stories make it out to be. It is spread mainly when fluids from the nose are shared or by breathing in the bacteria. Symptoms, which includes scaly skin, numbness, blindness, and paralysis, can appear anywhere from two to twenty years after first contracting the disease. Anyone who had leprosy were treated as lost causes. There seemed to be no hope for anyone with this disease. However, one woman came along and made an amazing discovery.

Alice Ball completely changed how we treated leprosy. She was born in 1892. Her parents were extremely supportive of Alice’s love for science. She eventually earned degrees in chemistry and pharmacy from the University of Washington. After this, Alice moved to Hawaii, where she was the first woman and the first African-America to be accepted into the graduate program. At the time, lepers were sent to one of the Hawaiian islands called Molokai. Lepers were treated with oil made from the seeds of the chaulmoogra tree. This treatment only offered some relief. If it was ingested, it would cause stomach pains. If it was placed on the skin, there was no effect. If it was injected, it would just burn under the skin. Chaulmoogra oil is very hard to inject into someone because it was so thick and it didn’t mix well with water.

Alice’s mentor, Dr. Harry Hollmann, asked if she would be interested in trying to make chaulmoogra oil more soluble so it could be injected. This has plagued scientists for centuries, but Alice managed to find a way. Alice figured out a way to isolate ethyl esters in the fatty acids. It could then be easily mixed with water and safely injected. Her research had a tremendous effect. This was the first reasonable cure for leprosy the world has seen. Seventy-eight of the lepers were healed to such an extent, they were allowed to go home. People who just caught leprosy didn’t have to be sent to Molokai. Alice’s cure, dubbed the Ball method, continued to be used until the 1940s. Current treatments involves a heavy antibiotic regimen that can last anywhere from six months to two years.

Here comes the sad part of this story. Alice died at the young age of 24 before she could publish her results. The president of the university, Arthur Dean, decided to continue her work. He eventually published his own research without crediting Alice! The betrayal! Dr. Hollmann argued against him, and tried to give Alice the credit she deserved. It wasn’t until 2000 when she was finally recognized for her treatment. Today, she is properly remembered as a pioneer of chemistry.

The story of Alice Ball is bittersweet. We have this incredibly smart, talented woman. Her research benefited so many people, and yet all her hard work was snatched away from her. It took about eighty years until she was credited with the Ball method! Unfortunately, she is not the only woman whose work was taken without credit. Thankfully, we live in a day and age where women are encouraged in their scientific explorations. There’s still some challenges out there, but that hasn’t stopped us. We the opportunity to show the world exactly what we’re capable of.

 

Sources

“Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World,” written and illustreated by Rachel Ignotofsky

Articles on Alice Ball: http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/ball-alice-augusta-1892-1916

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/1837

https://blue-stocking.org.uk/2016/02/29/alice-ball-and-the-fight-against-leprosy/

Leprosy: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/index.html

Gerty and Carl Cori

           I’m not much of a romantic, but the lives of Gerty and Carl Cori managed to tug at my heart strings a little. They were both born in 1896 and lived in Prague. Carl was basically groomed from birth to be a professor. Gerty was fortunate enough to have a family who encouraged her to pursue a higher education, despite the challenges for being a Jewish woman. She was one of only a handful of women studying medicine at her university. It was here where she met Carl, a fellow student at the university, for the first time. They were inseparable from the start. After they graduated, they got married. They moved to Buffalo, New York a few years later to escape the pressures in Europe brought by World War II.

            Carl absolutely refused any job where he and Gerty could not work together. They were met with some resistance, but soon everyone knew of Gerty’s competence as a biochemist. Despite working together, Gerty was still paid a much lower wage than her husband. But they still continued on with their work. It was Gerty who had the main ideas, and her husband supported her through and through. Together, they will eventually publish fifty papers in a span of nine years. During the 1920s, it was understood that sugar is used as energy for the body and that insulin helped regulate sugar levels in diabetics. However, the exact process was unknown. Gerty’s own father had died from diabetes, and this is what influenced her to focus on sugar metabolism.

Through tireless research, the Coris figured out how humans processed sugar for energy. They discovered this process in 1929, and named it the Cori cycle. How it works is that glucose in the liver is transported to the muscles. Once the glucose is used for its energy, it turns into lactic acid. The lactic acid is then processed in the liver and turned into glycogen. The glycogen is broken down into glucose, and the cycle starts over. The enzyme that transforms glycogen into glucose was discovered to be phosphorylase. Together, the Coris also managed to make glycogen in a test tube. This was the first time such a large, complicated molecule was created in a tube. For their efforts, they were awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947. Their discovery helped further research concerning diabetes. The Coris’ lab eventually

            Although they co-discovered the Cori cycle, it was Carl who received countless job offers. However, he ended up turning down most of them because they wouldn’t allow Gerty to work with him. Soon, Gerty would develop a bone marrow disease that severely weakened her.  She absolutely refused to quit her research. Carl would even carry her around her lab when she could no longer walk. She continued to work in her lab until the day she died in 1957. Gerty’s and Carl’s story shows how much we need to support our lady scientists out there. Even today, women only take up about a quarter of the STEM work force. Thankfully, the number of women studying science is on the rise. The important thing is to support women in their research and to encourage little girls that they truly can be whoever they want to be when they grow up. Who knows, maybe one day one of those little girls will make a discovery that will shock the world down to its core.

 

Sources
“Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World,” written and Illustrated by Rachel Ignotofsky

Gerty Cori- Facts: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1947/cori-gt-facts.html

Gerty T. Cori (1896-1957): http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/mig/bios/corig.html

Dr. Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori:  https://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_69.html

 

Carl and Gerty Cori and Carbohydrate Metabolism: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/carbohydratemetabolism.html