Woman Crush Wednesday: Gerty Theresa Cori, PhD
Gerty Theresa Cori, PhD is an inspiration to all young women in the medical field, as the first U.S. woman to win a Nobel Prize in the field of Science. Although she was a U.S. citizen, in 1896 Gerty was born in Prague, where she spent most of her adolescent life. Here she was one of the few women who attended the Medical School of the German University of Prague. While in her first year of school, she met her future husband and research partner, Carl Cori. They both earned their Doctorate in Medicine in 1920, and got married shortly after.
After graduation the couple moved to Vienna where Gerty started in a position at Karolinen Children’s Hospital, even though her husband was given a spot at the University of Vienna’s Medical Clinic and Pharmacological Institute. This pattern of unfair opportunity due to gender continued well into Gerty’s career. 1922 Carl and Gerty moved to the United States as Carl was offered a biochemistry position at the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease in Buffalo, NY, but Gerty was forced to take a lower position as assistant pathologist even though she had the same agree and research experience as her husband. They finally started to work together in 1925 when Gerty was promoted to assistant biochemist. During this time the couple’s research was focused on the metabolism of tumors, but gradually shifted to the metabolism of carbohydrates as a catalyst to the body making and storing energy.
In 1931 they moved to St. Louis, Missouri where their work took a turn to focus on glucose storage in the muscles. This shift led to their 1936 discovery of glucose-1-phosphate, which explained how the sugar stored in the muscles is broken down into lactic acid and then transported to the liver and then back to the muscles as energy. In 1940 Gerty was promoted to Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Finally in 1947 Carl and Gerty received a Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for their research that explained how glucose is metabolized, which led to insight that helped develop treatment for diabetes. After the notoriety set in with the Coris’ Nobel Prize victory, Gerty was promoted again to Professor of Biochemistry at Washington University.
Although this was the peak of her career, she unfortunately passed away 10 years later in 1957 after a battle with bone marrow disease and liver failure. Even though she was her husband’s research partner in most endeavours, there were many instances where she did not receive the recognition he did. She did get recognition throughout her career and after her passing as she was elected to the National Academy of Science 8 years after her husband, and she received the Society’s Garvan Medal in 1948 which was awarded to women for their excellence in the chemical field.
Though in her life, she may not have gotten all of the praise she deserved, we still recognize Gerty Cori to this day for the amazing contributions she made to medicine and the countless lives she has helped due to her research.
If you would like to learn more about Gerty we sourced our information from NobelPrize.org and ACS.org