Rosalyn Yalow

Without Rosalyn Yalow, we wouldn’t have blood tests for diabetes, hepatitis, or thyroid disease.

Born in the Bronx in 1921, Rosalyn was raised in a Jewish immigrant household.

Her parents never finished high school, but expected their daughter to go to college.

She graduated from Hunter College in 1941 as the school’s first female physics major.

Most graduate schools rejected her.

One told her directly: as a Jew and a woman, she’d never get a job in science.

But World War II created a temporary opening.

Men were drafted, and in 1941 the University of Illinois accepted her as a teaching assistant.

She was the only woman among 400 faculty members and the first since 1917.

She earned her PhD in nuclear physics in 1945.

No labs would hire her, so she took teaching jobs and volunteered in medical research labs.

In 1947, she joined the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital part-time.

Her first “lab space” was a broom closet.

By 1950, she went full-time and met Solomon Berson, the physician who became her research partner for the next 22 years.

Together, they developed radioimmunoassay (RIA), a method for detecting tiny quantities of substances in blood using radioactive tracers and antibodies.

The technique could measure hormones, vitamins, enzymes, and drugs with unprecedented sensitivity.

Before RIA, there was no way to detect insulin in the bloodstream at low levels.

Using the technique, they discovered that diabetics developed insulin-binding antibodies, making treatment less effective.

The paper was finally published in 1959.

RIA was a turning point in medical science.

It made possible:
– Blood screening for hepatitis
– Accurate dosing of antibiotics and drugs
– Diagnosis of hormone-related conditions like dwarfism, infertility, and thyroid disease
– The later development of drugs like exenatide (GLP-1 agonist), which came from RIA-based research into Gila monster venom

Yalow and Berson never patented the technique.

They believed medical science should be freely shared.
Berson died in 1972.

Yalow named the lab after him so his name would remain on her research.

In 1977, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

She was the second woman to win in the field and the first American-born woman.

She also received the Lasker Award, the National Medal of Science, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

She kept working at the VA until her retirement in 1991.

She died in 2011 at age 89.