Mildred Cohn | |
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| Born | (1913-07-12)July 12, 1913 New York City, New York, US |
| Died | October 12, 2009(2009-10-12) (aged 96) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US |
| Education | Hunter College,Columbia University |
| Spouse | Henry Primakoff |
| Children | Three |
| Parents |
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| Awards | Garvan–Olin Medal(1963) Elliott Cresson Medal(1975), National Medal of Science(1982) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physical Biochemistry |
| Institutions | National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics University of Pennsylvania Washington University School of Medicine |
| Doctoral advisor | Harold Urey |
Mildred Cohn (July 12, 1913 – October 12, 2009)[1][2] was an Americanbiochemist who furthered understanding ofbiochemical processes through her study ofchemical reactions within animalcells. She was a pioneer in the use ofnuclear magnetic resonance for studyingenzyme reactions, particularly reactions ofadenosine triphosphate (ATP).[3]
She received the nation's highest science award, theNational Medal of Science, in 1982,[4] and was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame.
Cohn's parents, childhood sweethearts Isidore Cohn and Bertha Klein Cohn,[3] wereJewish. Her father was arabbi. They leftRussia for theUnited States around 1907. Mildred Cohn was born July 12, 1913, inthe Bronx, where her family lived in an apartment. When Mildred was 13, her father moved the family to aYiddish-speaking cooperative,Heim Gesellschaft, which strongly emphasized education, the arts,social justice, and the preservation of Yiddish culture.[5]
Cohn graduated from high school at 14.[6] She went on to attendHunter College, which was both free and open to all qualified women, irrespective of race, religion or ethnic background.[7] She received her Bachelor's cum laude in 1931.[6] She managed to afford a single year atColumbia University, but was ineligible for an assistantship because she was a woman.[7] After receiving hermaster's degree in 1932, she worked for theNational Advisory Committee for Aeronautics for two years.[6] Although she had a supportive supervisor, she was the only woman among 70 men, and was informed that she would never be promoted.[7] She subsequently returned to Columbia, studying underHarold Urey, who had just won theNobel Prize.[8] Originally, Cohn was working to study the differentisotopes of carbon. However, her equipment failed her, and she could not finish this project. She went on to write her dissertation onoxygen isotopes and earned herPhD inphysical chemistry in 1938.[9]
| External videos | |
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 “I didn’t intend to be an assistant for the rest of my life; so I started a new field of research”, talk given at theScience History Institute in 2005. |
With Urey's recommendation, Cohn was able to obtain a position as a research associate in the laboratory ofVincent du Vigneaud atthe George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C.. There Cohn conducted post-doctoral studies onsulfur amino acid metabolism using radioactive sulfur isotopes. Cohn pioneered the use of isotopic tracers to examine the metabolism of sulfur-containing compounds.[10] When du Vigneaud moved his laboratory toCornell University Medical College inNew York City, Cohn and her new husband, physicistHenry Primakoff, moved to New York as well.[7][11]
In 1946,Henry Primakoff was offered a faculty appointment atWashington University School of Medicine. Cohn was able to obtain a research position withCarl andGerty Cori in their biochemistry laboratory in the university's school of medicine.[11] There, she was able to choose her own research topics. She used nuclear magnetic resonance to investigate the reaction ofphosphorus with ATP, revealing considerable information about the biochemistry of ATP,[3] including the structure of ATP,oxidative phosphorylation and role ofdivalent ions in theenzymatic conversion of ATP andADP.[12]
When asked in later life about her most exciting moments in science, Cohn replied: "In 1958, using nuclear magnetic resonance, I saw the first three peaks of ATP. That was exciting. [I could] distinguish the three phosphorus atoms of ATP with a spectroscopic method, which had never been done before."[12] Using a stable isotope ofoxygen, Cohn discovered howphosphorylation and water are part of theelectron transport system of the metabolic pathway oxidative phosphorylation, the ubiquitous process used by allaerobic organisms to generate energy, in the form of ATP, from nutrients. She elucidated how thedivalent metal ions are involved in the enzymatic reactions of ADP and ATP by studying NMR spectra of the phosphorusnuclei and the structural change in the presence of various divalent ions.[10]
In 1958, she was promoted from research associate to associate professor.[7] In 1960, Cohn and her husband joined theUniversity of Pennsylvania. Mildred was appointed as an associate professor of Biophysics and Physical Biochemistry, and became a full professor the following year.[2][11] In 1964, she became the first woman to receive the American Heart Association's Lifetime Career Award, providing support until she reached age sixty-five.[13] In 1971, she was elected to theNational Academy of Sciences.[7] She was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society the following year.[14] In 1982, she retired from the faculty as the Benjamin Rush Professor Emerita of Physiological Chemistry.[11] In 1984, Cohn received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[15]
In the course of her career, Mildren Cohn worked with four Nobel laureates, who received three Nobel prizes:
Cohn wrote 160 papers, mostly on her primary research subject of using nuclear magnetic resonance to study ATP.[12] She received a number of honorary doctorates.
She won the American Chemical Society'sGarvan-Olin Medal in 1963.[18] In 1968, she was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[19] She was awarded the Franklin Institute'sElliott Cresson Medal in 1975, for her work on nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of enzymatic complexes. She received the International Organization of Women Biochemists Award[20] in 1979.[6] She received Columbia University'sChandler Medal in 1986.[21]
She was presented with theNational Medal of Science by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 for 'pioneering the use of stable isotopic tracers and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the study of the mechanisms of enzymatic catalysis'.[22]
During her career, Cohn achieved several gender firsts: She was the first woman to be appointed to the editorial board of theJournal of Biological Chemistry, where she served as editor from 1958–63 and from 1968–73. She was also the first woman to become president of theAmerican Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, then called the American Society of Biological Chemists (serving as such from 1978 to 1979),[23][24][25] and the first woman career investigator for theAmerican Heart Association.[2][11] In 2009, she was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame inSeneca Falls, New York.[2][26]
Mildred Cohn was married tophysicistHenry Primakoff from 1938 until his death in 1983.[4] They had three children, all of whom earned doctorates.[7] Mildren Cohn is quoted in Elga Wasserman's book,The Door in the Dream: Conversations With Eminent Women in Science, as saying “My greatest piece of luck was marrying Henry Primakoff, an excellent scientist who treated me as an intellectual equal and always assumed that I should pursue a scientific career and behaved accordingly.”[1][7]
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