On this day 97-years back, a stubborn and determined girl was born who later went on to become a Nobel laureate, Rosalyn Sussman Yalow. Yalow was an American medical physicist and joint recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize along with Andrew V. Schally and Roger Guillemin for Physiology or Medicine.
Yalow was awarded for her contribution for the development of radioimmunoassay or RIA. She developed the RIA together with Solomon Berson. RIA measured small concentrations of substances in the body such as hormones in the blood. It is a radioisotope tracing procedure that measures the various biological matters in human blood along with other aqueous fluids.
This technique was originally used to study insulin levels in diabetes mellitus. Yalow and Berson tracked insulin by injecting radioactive iodine into patients’ blood. As their method was so precise, they were able to prove that type-2 diabetes is caused by the body’s inefficient use of insulin. Since then it has been applied to hundreds of other substances such as hormones, vitamins and enzymes; those were too small to separate previously.
Her hard work and dedication earned her the much-deserved Nobel Prize in 1977. She is also the first female recipient of the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award. She passed away on 30th May 2011 leaving the world mourning and grieving. Yalow challenged the traditional beliefs that portrayed women as housewives and mothers and went on with her dream, and we thank her for being a stubborn rebel and creating history with her unparalleled work in the field of science.
On her 97th birth anniversary today, we hope her soul rests in peace and bow down to her in gratitude.
