Yalow rosalyn sussman biography
- Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (July 19, 1921 – May 30, 2011) was an American medical physicist, and a co-winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- I was born on July 19, 1921 in New York City and have always resided and worked there except for 3 1/2 years when I was a graduate student at the University.
- Born in Bronx, NY, Yalow's interest in chemistry began at Walton High School.
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Rosalyn Sussman Yalow co-developed the radioimmunoassay (RIA), a method used to measure minute biological compounds that cause immune systems to produce antibodies. Yalow and research partner Solomon A. Berson developed the RIA in the early 1950s at the Bronx Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital, in New York City, New York. Yalow and Berson's methods expanded scientific research, particularly in the medical field, and contributed to medical diagnostics. For this achievement, Yalow received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1977. The RIA technique is used to measure more than one hundred biochemical substances, including infectious agents, narcotics, and hormones, such as those used to diagnose infertility and hypothyroidism.
Yalow was born on 19 July 1921, in the South Bronx borough of New York City. Her mother, Clara Zipper, migrated to the US from Germany at the age of four, while her father, Simon Sussman, was raised in New York City. Neither of Yalow's parents attended school beyond elementary grades, but they hoped that she and her older brother Alexander would b
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Rosalyn Yalow
Yalow’s work was recognized throughout the medical field, and she was inundated with prizes, appointments, and honorary degrees. In the mid-1950s, she was already serving as a consultant at Lenox Hill Hospital. In 1961, she was given the American Diabetes Association’s Eli Lilly Award; in 1968 she was named acting chief of the radioisotope service at the Bronx VA Hospital and was also appointed research professor in the department of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, a position she held until 1974. She was a member of the President’s Study Group on Careers for Women from 1966 to1967. In 1969, she was appointed chief of the RIA reference laboratory. In 1970, she became chief of the nuclear medicine service, a position she held until 1986, and, in 1972, she was named senior medical investigator of the Veterans Administration. She also became a distinguished service professor at Mount Sinai, which had become an affiliate of the Bronx VA Hospital, from 1974 to 1979, after which she taught at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, for
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Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921–2011)
Yalow received her master’s degree in 1942 and Ph.D. in 1945. After a few jobs in electrical engineering and teaching, she decided to devote her career to full-time research. In 1950, Yalow began working with physician Solomon Berson with whom she gained clinical expertise while strengthening her physics, math, and chemistry. Together they discovered new ways to use radioactive isotopes to measure blood, study iodine metabolism, and diagnose thyroid diseases.
Later they decided to apply their methods to hormones, one of the most important classes of small peptides. Because insulin was the most readily-available hormone in a highly-purified form, the scientists began investigating the adult onset of diabetes. Yalow also had a personal interest in this area because her husband, Aaron, was diabetic. Among the endocrine gland disorders, diabetes affects the greatest number of people, making insulin uniquely important. Death is unavoidable without insulin and its ability to lower blood sugar.
Using radioisotopes, Yalow and Berson discovered the need
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