July 19: Rosalyn Yalow

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, the second woman (both of them Jewish) to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, was born in Manhattan on this date in 1921. She was the first graduate in physics from Hunter College, a school for women, yet she struggled to find acceptance in a graduate school. Her typing skills landed her a secretarial job at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and kept her in the presence of research science until World War II, when, with the male workforce greatly reduced, she gained a teaching fellowship in physics and gained her Ph.D in 1945. Her Nobel Prize came 32 years later for her development, with Solomon Berson, of the radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique of identifying tiny traces of biological substances in human blood and other liquids, enabling the diagnosis of hepatitis and many other diseases. “We are witnessing the birth of a new era of endocrinology, one that started with Yalow,” said the Nobel committee. Despite RIA’s tremendous commercial value, Yalow and Berson refused to patent it. In 1968, she became a professor in the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. In 1988 she was awarded the National Medal of Science. Yalow died this year at age 89.

“Initially, new ideas are rejected. Later they become dogma, if you’re right. And if you’re really lucky you can publish your rejections as part of your Nobel presentation.” —Rosalyn Yalow

Listen to Rosalyn Yalow talk about “Radioimmunoassay: Tool for Biomedical Investigation and Clinical Medicine” at the 28th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 1978