Dr. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow is famous for becoming the second
woman to win a Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1977. Dr. Yalow received the Noble Prize for her
development of radioimmunoassay of peptide hormones.
Rosalyn Sussman was born in New York City on July 19th, 1921. Rosalyn's mother, Clara Zipper, immigrated
from Germany when she was 4 years old, and her father, Simon Sussman, was born
in New York City's lower east side.
Neither of her parents had graduated high school, but education was a
considered a priority for Rosalyn.
Rosalyn began reading at a very early age and frequented the public
library weekly with her brother to replenish her supply of books. Rosalyn was a good student and graduated from
Walton High
School and later attended Hunter College
for women in 1937.
As an aspiring scientist, role models such as Madam Curie
helped inspire Rosalyn's interest in the new and exciting field of nuclear
physics. Rosalyn graduated from Hunter
in 1941 and received a teaching assistantship in physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Of the 400 members of the University of Illinois
faculty, she was the only woman and the first since 1917. It was during her first year at the University of Illinois that Rosalyn met her future
husband Aaron Yalow. The two were
married in 1943, and Dr. Rosalyn Yalow received her Ph.D. in 1945.
Dr. Rosalyn Yalow and her husband moved back to New York and she accepted a post as a physics lecturer at
Hunter College, which she held until 1950. During this time they had two children,
Benjamin and Elanna. Also during this
time, Dr. Rosalyn Yalow was a consultant to the Veteran's Administration
Hospital in the Bronx
where the VA was doing research into possible uses of radioactive substances in
medicine. In 1950, Dr. Rosalyn Yalow was
appointed physicist and assistant chief of the hospital's radioisotope service.
At the VA hospital, Dr. Rosalyn Yalow began a 22 year
collaboration with Dr. Solomon A. Berson.
Dr. Rosalyn Yalow and Dr. Berson first investigated the application of
radioisotopes in blood volume determination, clinical diagnosis of thyroid
diseases, and the kinetics of iodine metabolism. Later the techniques were expanded to studies
of the distribution of globin and serum proteins. Next the collaborators extended their work to
peptides, specifically Insulin which was widely available at that time in a
pure form. Eventually Dr. Rosalyn Yalow
and Dr. Berson realized that the technique they were using could be used to
track the amount of insulin circulating in a person's blood. After many years of refining their approach,
the technique of radioimmunoassay (RIA) was born. Today RIA is used to measure hundreds of
substances of biological interest.
In 1977, in recognition of the advancement in medicine
represented by RIA, Dr. Rosalyn Yalow received ½ of the Noble Prize in
Physiology and Medicine. The other half
was split between Roger Guillemin and Andrew V. Schally. Dr. Rosalyn Yalow expressed in her speech her
regret that her long time collaborator, Dr. Berson, who had died earlier in
1972, had not shared her half of the prize.
In 1988 Dr. Rosalyn Yalow won the National Medal of Science.
Dr. Rosalyn Yalow, 86, still lives today in the house she
bought when she began working at the Bronx VA hospital in 1945.
References:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Yalow.html
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1977/yalow-autobio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalyn_Sussman_Yalow
http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=175
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Re: Woman of the Week – Rosalyn Yalow (July 19th, 1921 to Present)
