8/2/2012

54 th Annual Meeting - 2012 American Association of Physicists in Medicine Charlotte, NC

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD A Personal & Scientific Memoir

Stanley J. Goldsmith, MD Professor, Radiology & Medicine -Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical College New York

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• Born July 19, 1921 • NYC Public Schools [Walton HS, Bronx] • Hunter College: 1 st Physics Major; High Honors. BA, age 19 • Applied to Purdue University for Graduate School in Physics. Rejected as a New Yorker who was Jewish and a woman. • With onset of WWII, offered a Teaching Assistantship at University of Illinois College of Engineering in Champaign-Urbana. Only woman among 400 teaching fellows and faculty.

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Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• 1943: Married Aaron Yalow [a fellow Graduate Student]; 2 children: son, Benjamin; daughter, Elanna • 1945: PhD, Nuclear Physics; returned to NY; Taught Physics at Hunter College • Sought Research position; volunteered to work in Radiotherapy [now Radiation Oncology] at Columbia P&S • 1947: Moved to Bronx VA; part-time research in Radiotherapy

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• 1950: Employed full-time at at Bronx VA; expanded use of medical application of radioactive materials for Blood Volume determinations. Recommended adding a physician to program. Bernard Roswit, MD, Chairman, Radiation Therapy recruited a young physician who had completed training in Internal Medicine, Solomon A. Berson, MD.

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• 1950: Thus began an extraordinary collaboration with seminal papers in body spaces of electrolytes, albumin, globulins, iodine kinetics, role of 131 I in diagnosis and therapy of thyroid disease. • Directed skills in handling radioactivity to labeling and assessing the mystery of why some diabetics [now known as maturity onset diabetics] had ample, even enlarged pancreatic islet cells, presumably secreting insulin, but nevertheless had .

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Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• Observation of Insulin antibodies • Quantified and characterized Insulin- antibody binding • Identified extraordinary specificity of insulin antibodies; differentiated insulin by species of origin • Studies evolved to development of method to measure insulin in 0.1 ml plasma or less

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

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Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• Mid-1960s: Defined physiology of insulin secretion in humans in health and disease. • Expanded application of radioimmunoassay methodology to detection of Human • Adreno Cortico Trophic Hormone [ACTH] • • , Glucagon, Australia Antigen, Cholecystakinin, Somatomedin, etc

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

0.9 I atoms 1.4 1.9 2.8 4.8

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• The team, Yalow & Berson, had become dominant scientists- in every aspects of peptide endocrinology and many other areas –occupational exposure to toxic materials, viral assays, drug assays • In 1968, Berson (age 50) appointed Chairman, Department of Medicine Mt. Sinai School of Medicine

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• July 1968: Goldsmith joined Yalow as Research Associate and Physician, Radioisotope Sevice, Bronx VA Hospital • July-September: Completed “Effect of Physiologic Variations of human Growth Hormone on Insulin Secretion”; presented at International HGH Symposium; published Diabetes • September 1968-April 1969 “Sephadex Fractionation of Plasma Insulin”; presented ADA; published Diabetes • February 1968-June 1969 “Effect of Glucose, Tolbutamide, Arginine and Glucagon of Insulin Secretion in Humans”; published Diabetes

Goldsmith SJ, Yalow RS & Berson, SA: 1967-1968

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Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

• 1972: Solomon Berson Dies; laboratory at the Bronx VA named in his honor • Dr. Yalow continues work on peptide hormone physiology; “Big” peptides=Pro-peptides CNS peptides as neuroligands • 1977 Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine 50% of prize to Guillermin & Schalley for discovery of hypothalamic peptide hormones including somatostatin, TRH, CRH, etc…

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

Rosalyn S. Yalow, PhD

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