Rosalyn
Sussman Yalow was born on July 19, 1921 in New York,
New York. She was educated at Hunter College and the University of
Illinois, where she completed her Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1945.
Following completion of her doctoral degree, she joined the Bronx
Veterans Administration Hospital in 1947. She also held the post of
research professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
She is most noted for her work in the development of radio immunoassay procedures. She received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1977 for the applications of radio immunoassay procedures to biomedical research.
She and her coworker are credited with the use of radioactive iodine as a tracer in the clinical diagnosis of thyroid disease. They also investigated the distribution and metabolism of serum proteins in the body. During the 1950s Yalow and Berson discovered the presence of insulin-binding antibodies in the plasma of insulin-treated patients. Later they studied human growth hormone, corticotrophin, parathyroid hormone and gastrin in the human body. The procedures developed by Yalow and Berson have lead to the diagnosis of diseases associated with hormonal excesses and/or deficiencies.
References
Ireland, N.O. (1962). Index to Scientists of the World, from Ancient to Modern Times: Biographies and Portraits. Boston, MA: Faxon.
McGraw-Hill (1980). McGraw-Hill Modern Scientists and Engineers. New York: McGraw-Hill.