Maud Caroline Slye | |
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![]() Maud Slye in 1928 | |
Born | |
Died | September 17, 1954 75) | (aged
Resting place | Oak Woods Cemetery |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Brown University University of Chicago |
Known for | Genetically uniform mice as a research tool |
Awards | Gold Medal, American Medical Association |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Pathology, Genetics |
Institutions | University of Chicago |
Maud Caroline Slye (February 8, 1879 – September 17, 1954) was an American pathologist who was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. [1] A historian of women and science wrote that Slye "'invented' genetically uniform mice as a research tool." [2] Her work focused on the heritability of cancer in mice. She was also an advocate for the comprehensive archiving of human medical records, believing that proper mate selection would help eradicate cancer. During her career, she received multiple awards and honors, including the gold medal of the American Medical Association in 1914, the Ricketts Prize in 1915, and the gold medal of the American Radiological Society in 1922. In 1923, Albert Soiland, a pioneer radiologist, nominated Maud Slye, a cancer pathologist for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The nomination came as a result of her work as one of the first scientists to suggest that cancer can be an inherited disease, and for the development of new procedures for the care and breeding of lab mice.
Slye received her undergraduate training at the University of Chicago and Brown University. While at the University of Chicago, she supported herself as a secretary for University President William Rainey Harper. After a breakdown, she completed her studies at Brown in 1899. After teaching, she began her postgraduate work in 1908 at the University of Chicago, performing neurological experiments on mice. She would remain at the University of Chicago for the rest of her career. After hearing of a cluster of cattle cancers at a nearby stockyard, she changed the focus of her research to cancer. Slye raised—and kept pedigrees for—150,000 mice during her career. [2] On 5 May 1913, she first presented a paper before the American Society for Cancer Research regarding the work on general problems in heredity, carried on at the University of Chicago in the Department of Zoology. [3] In 1919 she was selected as director of the Cancer Laboratory at the University of Chicago. In 1922, she was promoted to assistant professor and became an associate professor in 1926. She retired in 1945 as a professor Emeritus of Pathology. Her belief that cancer was a recessive trait that could be eliminated through breeding caused clashes with fellow scientists, including C. C. Little. [4]
Slye was devoted to her work. A 1937 Time account of her behavior at a science convention described her as "high-spirited" and quoted her as saying: "I breed out breast cancers. I don't think we should feel so hopeless about breeding out other types. Only romance stops us. It is the duty of scientists to ascertain and present facts. If the people prefer romance to taking advantage of these facts, there is nothing we can do about it." [5] Reluctant to leave her mice to the care of her assistants, she once went twenty-six years without a vacation. She never married and spent her retirement reviewing data from her research. She died of a heart attack in 1954 and was buried in Oak Woods Cemetery. News of her passing was featured on the front page of the Chicago Daily Tribune. [6]
The Women's Centennial Congress organized by Carrie Chapman Catt was held in New York City in November 25–27, 1940, to celebrate a century of female progress. To demonstrate their advances, 100 "successful women" were invited to represent their respective fields of study in which they were working in 1940, but that would have been impossible for them in 1840. Slye's participation was listed under "Science" with Margaret Mead and Annie Jump Cannon, among others. The 100 women chosen were "all American, alive and doing jobs that would have been impossible for a woman to undertake in 1840." [7]
Besides a prolific and dedicated scientist, Slye found time to publish two separate volumes of poetry. Songs and Solaces (1934) and I in the Wind (1936). [8]
Maud Leonora Menten was a Canadian physician and chemist. As a bio-medical and medical researcher, she made significant contributions to enzyme kinetics and histochemistry, and invented a procedure that remains in use. She is primarily known for her work with Leonor Michaelis on enzyme kinetics in 1913. The paper has been translated from its written language of German into English.
Carrie Chapman Catt was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". She "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women."
Janet Davison Rowley was an American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers, thus proving that cancer is a genetic disease. Rowley spent the majority of her life working in Chicago and received many awards and honors throughout her life, recognizing her achievements and contributions in the area of genetics.
Florence Barbara Seibert was an American biochemist. She is best known for identifying the active agent in the antigen tuberculin as a protein, and subsequently for isolating a pure form of tuberculin, purified protein derivative (PPD), enabling the development and use of a reliable TB test. Seibert has been inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Claudia Joan Alexander was a Canadian-born American research scientist specializing in geophysics and planetary science. She worked for the United States Geological Survey and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was the last project manager of NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter and until the time of her death had served as project manager and scientist of NASA's role in the European-led Rosetta mission to study Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
Elaine V. Fuchs is an American cell biologist known for her work on the biology and molecular mechanisms of mammalian skin and skin diseases, who helped lead the modernization of dermatology. Fuchs pioneered reverse genetics approaches, which assess protein function first and then assess its role in development and disease. In particular, Fuchs researches skin stem cells and their production of hair and skin. She is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The Rockefeller University.
Grace Raymond Hebard was an American historian, suffragist, scholar, writer, political economist, and noted University of Wyoming educator. Hebard's standing as a historian in part rose from her years trekking Wyoming's high plains and mountains seeking first-hand accounts of Wyoming's early pioneers. Today, her books on Wyoming history are sometimes challenged due to her romanticization of the Old West, spurring questions regarding accuracy of her research findings. In particular, her conclusion after decades of field research that Sacajawea was buried in Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation is questioned.
Sarah Elizabeth Stewart was a Mexican-American researcher who pioneered the field of viral oncology research, and the first to show that cancer-causing viruses can spread from animal to animal. She and Bernice Eddy co-discovered the first polyoma virus, and SE (Stewart-Eddy) polyoma virus is named after them.
Maud Cuney Hare was an American pianist, musicologist, writer, and African-American activist in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. She was born in Galveston, the daughter of famed civil rights leader Norris Wright Cuney, who led the Texas Republican Party during and after the Reconstruction Era, and his wife Adelina, a schoolteacher. In 1913 Cuney-Hare published a biography of her father.
The Women's Centennial Congress was organized by Carrie Chapman Catt and held at the Astor Hotel on November 25-27, 1940, to celebrate a century of female progress.
Kamal Jayasing Ranadive was an Indian biomedical researcher known for her research on the links between cancers and viruses. She was a founding member of the Indian Women Scientists' Association (IWSA).
Abbie E. C. Lathrop was a rodent fancier and commercial breeder who bred fancy mice and inbred strains for animal models, particularly for research on development and hereditary properties of cancer.
Mary Cynthia Dickerson was an American herpetologist and the first curator of herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History, as well as the first curator in the now defunct department of Woods and Forestry. For ten years she was the editor of The American Museum Journal, which was renamed Natural History during her editorship. She published two books: Moths and Butterflies (1901) and The Frog Book (1906) as well as numerous popular and scientific articles. She described over 20 species of reptiles and is commemorated in the scientific names of four lizards.
Lilian Jane Gould (1861–1936), also known as Lilian J. Veley, was a British biologist mainly known for her studies of microorganisms in liquor. She was one of the first women admitted to the Linnaean Society. Apart from her scientific work, she was one of the first European breeders of Siamese cats.
Alda Heaton Wilson (1873–1960) was an architect and civil engineer from Iowa. She and her sister Elmina were the first American women to practice civil engineering after obtaining a four-year degree. She worked as a freelance architect in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri before moving to New York and working there for over a decade. She was the first woman supervisor of the women's drafting department of the Iowa Highway Commission. In her later career, she curtailed her architectural works, becoming the secretary, housemate and traveling companion of Carrie Chapman Catt.
Mary Garrett Hay was an American suffragist and community organizer. She served as president of the Women's City Club of New York, the Woman Suffrage Party and the New York Equal Suffrage League. Hay was known for creating woman's suffrage groups across the country. She was also close to the notable suffragist, Carrie Chapman Catt, with one contemporary, Rachel Foster Avery, stating that Hay "really loves" Catt.
Thelma Flournoy Brumfield Dunn was a medical researcher whose work on mice led to significant advances in human cancer research.
Paula Hertwig was a German biologist and politician. Her research focused on radiation health effects. Hertwig was the first woman to habilitate at the then Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin in the field of zoology. She was also the first biologist at a German university. Hertwig is one of the founders of radiation genetics alongside Emmy Stein. Hertwig-Weyers syndrome, which describes oligodactyly in humans as a result of radiation exposure, is named after her and her colleague, Helmut Weyers.
Margaret Georgia Kelly was an American pharmacologist specialized in the pharmacology of drugs used in cancer chemotherapy, carcinogenesis, and chemical protection against radiation and alkylating agents. Kelly was a senior investigator in the National Cancer Institute's laboratory of chemical pharmacology.
Ruth May Tunnicliff was an American physician, medical researcher, bacteriologist, and pathologist, based in Chicago. She developed a serum against measles, and did laboratory research for the United States Army during the 1918 influenza pandemic.