Radioimmunoassay and revolution in medical investigation: Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine (1977) Rosalyn Yalow – scientist with a fighting spirit

Abstract

An intelligent but poor New York City girl, whom her parents saw in the future only as a teacher at best, Rosalyn Yalow after finishing school in 1937 went to all-female Hunter College and was the first woman with a degree in physics at a time when being a woman, much less a Jewish women, was a severe barrier to success. Although she was called somewhat aggressive and high-brow she became the first woman student in the physics department at the University of Illinois, the only woman among 400 members of the College of Engineering faculty and after receiving Ph. D the only women engineer at the Bronx Telecommunications Laboratory. By 1950, she established a radioisotope laboratorу in the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital, one of the first in the United States. In collaboration with an M.D. Sol Berson, a research partnership with whom lasted for 22 years, Yalow investigated the metabolism of 131I-labeled insulin in diabetic patients and not only demonstrated for the first time the production of antibodies against such a small protein but also developed the breakthrough radioimmunoassay (RIA) to measure insulin concentration in patient’s blood with no radioactivity entered a body. This revolutionary technique began to be widely used around the world for measuring a variety of biological substances. In 1977 R. Yalow was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine “for developing radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones.” The review describes the scientific career and life path of this extraordinary woman. Keywords: ELIZA, insulin, Nobel Prise, radioimmunoassay, Rosalyn Yalow