Women Scientists

Rosalyn Yalow 1921-

At a glance:

American medical physicist who won a Nobel prize for her work developing the radioimmunoassay technique

Rosalyn Yalow was born in New York. Believing that a woman would never get financial support for a College course, she got a job as a secretary to a biochemist, graduating from Hunter College in 1941. During the war scholarships were offered to women as so many men were off fighting, enabling her to take tuition free courses in physics. She began working at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital after gaining her PhD and has remained there ever since. She collaborated with Solomon Berson to develop radioimmunoassay, a technique which uses radioisotopes to measure those substances in the blood only present in the tiniest quantities, such as hormones, vitamins and enzymes which had previously been too small to detect. The technique revolutionised the treatment and understanding of many conditions including diabetes, thyroid disease and fertility problems. The radioimmunoassay was critical to medical advance and had huge commercial potential. However Berson and Yalow refused to patent the method.
Rosalyn Yalow

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