Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was born in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Clara (née Zipper) and Simon Sussman, and was raised in a Jewish household. She went toWalton High School (Bronx),New York City. After high school, she attended the all-female, tuition-freeHunter College, where her mother hoped she would learn to become a teacher. Instead, Yalow decided to study physics.
I was excited about achieving a career in physics. My family, being more practical, thought the most desirable position for me would be as an elementary school teacher.
Yalow knew how to type, and was able to get a part-time position as a secretary to Dr.Rudolf Schoenheimer, a leading biochemist atColumbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. She did not believe that any respectable graduate school would admit and financially support a woman, so she took another job as a secretary to Dr.Michael Heidelberger, another biochemist at Columbia, who hired her on the condition that she studiedstenography. She graduated fromHunter College in January 1941.[4]
A few years later, she received an offer to be a teaching assistant in physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received this offer partially becauseWorld War II had just begun and many men went off to fight, and the University opted to offer women education and jobs to avoid being shut down. At theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she was the only woman among the University's 400 members, and the first since 1917.[5]: 109 Yalow earned herPhD in 1945. The next summer, she took two tuition-free physics courses under government auspices atNew York University.[6]
She married fellow student Aaron Yalow, the son of a rabbi, in June 1943. They had two children, Benjamin and Elanna Yalow, and kept akosher home. Yalow did not believe in "balancing her career with her home life" and instead incorporated her home life wherever she could in her work life.[5]: 109 However, she viewed the traditional roles of a homemaker as a priority, and devoted herself to traditional duties associated with motherhood and being a wife.Throughout her career, she tended to shun feminist organizations, but still advocated for including morewomen in science.[6] While she believed the reason she had certain opportunities in physics was because of the war, she thought that the reason that the number of women in this field decreased after the war was due to a lack of interest. Yalow saw the feminist movement as a challenge to her traditional beliefs and thought that it encouraged women not to fulfill their duties to become mothers and wives.[5]: 109
The month after graduating fromHunter College in January 1941, Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was offered a position as a teaching assistant in the physics department of theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gaining acceptance to the physics graduate program in the college of engineering at the University of Illinois was one of the many hurdles she had to overcome as a woman in her field. Powerful male figures controlled opportunities for training, recognition, promotion, and many aspects of development in the field of science, and especially physics.
When Yalow entered the university in September 1941, she was the only woman in the faculty, which comprised 400 professors and teaching assistants. She was the first woman since 1917 to attend or teach at this engineering college.[7] Yalow credited her position at the prestigious graduate school to the shortage of male candidates during World War II. Being surrounded by gifted men made her aware of a wider world in science. They recognized her talent, they encouraged her, and they supported her. They were in a position to help her succeed.[5]
Yalow felt that other women in her field did not like her because of her ambition. Other women saw her curiosity as abandoning the only acceptable path for a woman in science at the time, becoming a high school science teacher, but Yalow wanted to be a physicist.[5] During her time at the University of Illinois, she took extra undergraduate courses to increase her knowledge because she wanted to do original experimental research in addition to her regular teaching duties.[8]
For years Yalow faced criticism from women at work but she never quit nor turned her back on other young women, if she believed they had the potential to become real scientists. She never became an advocate for women's organizations in the field of science.[8] She was even quoted as saying, "It bothers me that there are now organizations for women in science, which means they think they have to be treated differently from the men. I don't approve."[5]: 81 Although girls and young women found a role model in her after she won her Nobel, Yalow was not a champion for improving women's treatment or representation in science.[5]: 76 [9]
Yalow's first job after teaching and taking classes at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana graduate school was as an assistant electrical engineer at Federal Telecommunications Laboratory. She again found herself to be the only woman employee.[5] In 1946, she returned toHunter College to teach physics and consequently influenced many women, most notably a youngMildred Dresselhaus: Yalow was responsible for steering the future "Queen of Carbon Science" away from primary school teaching and into a research career.[10][11] She remained aphysics lecturer from 1946 to 1950, although by 1947, she began her long association with theVeterans Administration by becoming a consultant to theBronx Veteran's Administration Hospital.[12]
The Veteran's Administration wanted to establish research programs to explore medical uses of radioactive substances.[7] By 1950, Yalow had equipped aradioisotope laboratory at the Bronx VA Hospital and decided to leave teaching to finally devote her attention to full-time research. There she collaborated withSolomon Berson to developradioimmunoassay,[5] a radioisotope tracing technique that allows the measurement of tiny quantities of various biological substances in human blood as well as a multitude of other aqueous fluids. Originally used to study insulin levels in diabetes mellitus, the technique has since been applied to hundreds of other substances – includinghormones,vitamins andenzymes – all which had been present in quantities or concentrations that were previously too small to detect.[7] Without the contributions of Yalow to the work of accurate hormone measurement, it was impossible to diagnose various hormone-related conditions and endocrine diseases like type 1 diabetes.[13]
Despite its huge commercial potential, Yalow and Berson refused to patent the method. In 1968, Yalow was appointed as a research professor in the department of medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she later became the Solomon Berson Distinguished Professor at Large.[12] Yalow also had a passion for the next generation of researchers. She acted as a mentor figure to scientists from around the world, many of whom came to share her passion for investigative endocrinology research. One of her students, John Eng, later used her radioimmunoassay technique in 1992 to discover a novel substance inGila monster venom which he called exendin-4.[14]Exenatide, a drug based on a synthetic version of exendin-4, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005.[14] It was the first of theGLP-1 receptor agonist drugs which became enormously popular in the 2020s fordiabetes management andweight loss.[14] Another mentee, Dr.Narayana Panicker Kochupillai, went on to become a leading endocrinology researcher in India, studying thyroid hormones and iodine deficiency. In these ways, Yalow's legacy in endocrinology was carried on. A fitting title for Rosalyn Yalow may well be "the Mother of Endocrinology."[13]
Yalow (left), receiving the Middleton Award withKenneth Sterling, MD (center), and Bronx VA Medical Center Director Harold Jaffrey (right)
Yalow was awarded aFulbright fellowship toPortugal, which is an American scholarship program of competitive, merit-based grants that sponsor participants for exchanges in all areas of endeavor, including the sciences, business, academe, public service, government, and the arts.[15]
In 1961, Yalow won the Eli Lilly Award of the American Diabetes Association, which provides scholarships for up to 100 scholars to attend Scientific Sessions, the world's largest scientific and medical conference focused on diabetes and its complications. Additionally, it provides the education and training for these scholars to serve as faculty for professional education programs and to clinically manage the disease.[16]
A year later, she was awarded the Gairdner Foundation International Award, which recognizes the world's most creative and accomplished biomedical scientists who are advancing humanity.[17]
The same year, Yalow was awarded theAmerican College of Physicians Award, which recognizes excellence and distinguished contributions by individuals to internal medicine.[18]
In 1972, Yalow was awarded theWilliam S. Middleton Award for Excellence in Research, which is the highest honor awarded annually by the Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development Service to senior biomedical research scientists in recognition of their outstanding scientific contributions and achievements, pertaining to the healthcare of veterans.[19][20]
Also in 1972, she was given the Koch Award of the Endocrine Society, which awards individuals for their dedication to excellence in research, education and clinical practice in the field of endocrinology.[21]
In 1975, Yalow and Berson (who had died in 1972) were awarded theAmerican Medical Association Scientific Achievement Award, which is a gold medallion award presented to individuals on special occasions in recognition of their outstanding work in scientific achievement.[22][23]
The following year she became the first female recipient and first nuclear physicist of theAlbert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. Established by Albert and Mary Lasker in 1945, the award is intended to celebrate scientists who have made fundamental biological discoveries and clinical advances that improve human health.[24][25]
In 1977, Yalow was the sixth individual woman (seventh overall, consideringMarie Curie's two wins), and first American-born woman, to win theNobel Prize in a scientific field. She was also the second woman in the world to win in the physiology or medicine category (the first wasGerty Cori). Yalow was honored for her role in devising theradioimmunoassay technique, along withRoger Guillemin andAndrew V. Schally for their research in another field.[3] By measuring substances in the human body, the screening of the blood of donors for such diseases as hepatitis was made possible.[26] Radioimmunoassay can be used to measure a multitude of substances found in tiny quantities in fluids within and outside of organisms (such as viruses, drugs and hormones). The list of substances is endless, but specifically, it allowed blood donations to be screened for various types ofhepatitis. The technique can also be used to identify hormone-related health problems. Further, it can be used to detect in the blood many foreign substances including some cancers. Finally, the technique can be used to measure the effectiveness of dose levels of antibiotics and drugs.[27]
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow photographed in 1978 byLynn Gilbert
In 1978, Yalow was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, which provides an opportunity for an early-career professional with training in science or engineering to learn about a career in public policy and administration.[29][30][31]
In 1986, Yalow was awarded the A. Cressy Morrison Award in Natural Sciences of theNew York Academy of Sciences, which is offered by Mr. Abraham Cressy Morrison to individuals with superlative papers on a scientific subject within the field of The New York Academy of Sciences and its Affiliated Societies.[32]
In 1988, Yalow received theNational Medal of Science, which is given to American individuals who deserve the highest honor in science and technology.[33]
Yalow died May 30, 2011, in the Bronx, New York. She was predeceased by her husband, and survived by two children, Benjamin and Elanna, and two grandchildren.[35][36]
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