Janet Rowley | |
|---|---|
 Rowley at the White House in August 2009 | |
| Born | Janet Davison (1925-04-05)April 5, 1925 |
| Died | December 17, 2013(2013-12-17) (aged 88) |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Known for | Identificationchromosomal translocation as the cause ofleukemia and othercancers |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of Chicago |
Janet Davison Rowley (April 5, 1925 – December 17, 2013) was anAmerican humangeneticist and the first scientist to identify achromosomal translocation as the cause ofleukemia and othercancers, thus proving that cancer is a genetic disease.[1][2][3] Rowley spent the majority of her life working in Chicago and received many awards and honors throughout her life, recognizing her achievements and contributions in the area of genetics.
Janet Davison was born inNew York City in 1925, the only child of Hurford and Ethel Ballantyne Davison. Her father held amaster of business administration degree fromHarvard Business School, and her mother amaster's degree in education fromColumbia University. Her parents were educators at the college and high school levels, respectively, and her mother later gave up teaching to become a school librarian.
Davison attended an academically challenging junior high school inNew Jersey and became especially interested in science. In 1940, aged 15, she was granted a scholarship to study in an advanced placement program at theUniversity of Chicago Laboratory Schools where she finished high school and the first two years of college, followed by completion of her degree at theUniversity of Chicago, where she earned aBachelor of Philosophy degree in 1944, aBachelor of Science degree in 1946, andDoctor of Medicine degree in 1948, aged 23. Davison, only 19 years of age, had to wait 9 months in order to attend the university because their quota had already been filled for that semester.[4] During that time only 3 out of 65 students were to be women in each class accepted.[4] She married Donald Adams Rowley, also a physician, the day after graduating from medical school. He then went on to become a distinguishedpathologist later in life.[5] In 1951, both Janet and Donald Rowley completed internships at the United States Public Health Service's Marine Hospital inChicago.[6] Rowley continued her work throughout Chicago and worked in a clinic for children withDown Syndrome.[4] Rowley worked part-time until the youngest of her four sons was 12 years old.
After earning her medical license in 1951, Dr. Rowley worked as attending physician at the Infant and Prenatal Clinics in the Department of Public Health,Montgomery County, Maryland. In 1955 she took up a research post atChicago's Dr. Julian Levinson Foundation, a clinic for children withdevelopmental disabilities, where she remained until 1961. She also taughtneurology at theUniversity of Illinois College of Medicine.
In 1962, Rowley's interest in cancer and chromosomes was sparked as anNIH trainee, studying the patternDNA replication in normal and abnormal humanchromosomes.[4] Dr. Rowley then returned to the University of Chicago, as a research associate in the Department ofHematology. She became an associate professor in 1969 and a full professor in 1977. In the 1970s, she further developed the use of existing methods of quinacrine fluorescence andGiemsa staining to identifychromosomes, and demonstrated that the abnormalPhiladelphia chromosome implicated in certain types of leukemia was involved in a translocation with chromosome 9 in some cases. Translocation is the process by which a piece of one chromosome breaks off and joins another chromosome, or when two chromosomes exchange material when both break. She also identified translocation between chromosomes 8 and 21 inacute myelogenous leukemia, and between 15 and 17 inpromyelocytic leukemia.[7] Rowley also aided in the discovery, through her research, of the formation ofretinoic acid, a drug that is able to help return normal function to certain protein receptors.[5]
The first chromosomal translocation was discovered by Rowley in 1972 inacute myelogenous leukemia.[8] When Dr. Rowley published her findings in the 1970s, she argued that specific translocations caused specific diseases, going against the established view of the cause ofcancer which gave little significance to chromosomal abnormalities.[7] Although there was some resistance to her ideas at first, her work has proven immensely influential, and by 1990 over seventy translocations had been identified across different cancers.
In 1984, Dr. Rowley was made the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor of medicine, cell biology, molecular and human genetics at the University of Chicago.[6] She also served as the interim deputy dean for science. In 1989, she was not only presented with the Charles S. Mott Prize by General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, but the Clowes Memorial Award as well.[4] In 1991, she was elected as a member into the American Philosophical Society.[4] In 1998, she was one of three scientists awarded the prestigiousLasker Award for their work on translocation, and received theNational Medal of Science in 1998.[9] In 1999, Dr. Rowley received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[10] In 2002,Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.[11]In 2003, she received theBenjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of theAmerican Philosophical Society.[12] In 2007, she was awarded the Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics by theAssociation for Molecular Pathology.[13] In 2009, Dr. Rowley was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom,[14] the United States' highest civilian honor, by then-PresidentBarack Obama,[6] and theGruber Prize in Genetics. Then in 2010, she was awarded theJesse Stevenson Kovalenko Medal by theNational Academy of Sciences.[4] In 2012, Dr. Rowley was selected for theHope Funds for Cancer Research Award of excellence in the area of Basic Research and was elected to theHope Funds Scientific Advisory Board. Also in 2012, she won the Japan Prize for Healthcare and Medical Technology with two other scientists for her role in the creation of Gleevec.[4][15] For Rowley's scientific contributions she has received honorary doctor of science degrees from multiple institutions some of which includeYale University andHarvard University.[6] She is also a member of multiple scientific and honorary societies. These distinguished groups include theAmerican Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.[6] She published more than five hundred articles and continued her research at theUniversity of Chicago until shortly before her death. In 2017, she was posthumously inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame.[16][17]
On December 17, 2013, Rowley died at home at the age of 88 from complications ofovarian cancer.[6][17]
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