Lost Women of Science

In 1960 Marthe Gautier left the lab where she had discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome, and went on to have a successful career as a pediatric cardiologist. For decades, she remained silent as her former colleague Jérôme Lejeune continued to take credit for this pioneering discovery, and history wrote her out of the story. Until 2009. On the 50th anniversary of the paper that announced the discovery of trisomy 21, she decided to set the record straight. The process of changing history did not always go smoothly. In 2014, at the age of 88, she was set to give a talk and receive a medal at a conference, but the event was canceled hours in advance, and she was given the medal privately the next day. Finally, toward the end of her life, Gautier got the recognition she deserved. Before she died in 2022, she was also decorated by the French government for her contributions to science.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the mid-1950s Marthe Gautier, a young French doctor and cytogenetics researcher, led a cutting-edge experiment to investigate the cause of Down syndrome. She painstakingly cultured cells in a ramshackle lab until one day she discovered an extra chromosome in the cells of patients with Down syndrome. This proved beyond a doubt that Down syndrome is genetic.In this first episode of our two-part series about Gautier, she sees her discovery appropriated by a male colleague as he rushes to publish her findings. Jérôme Lejeune is listed as the lead author of the discovery even though Gautier did the work. Her name is listed second on this groundbreaking paper, published in 1959. And to add insult to injury, it is misspelled. It will take decades for Gautier to speak out. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are telling the story of Margarethe Hilferding, a pioneering psychoanalyst and physician from Vienna who was murdered in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942. She was the first woman to earn a medical degree at the University of Vienna and the first woman to join Sigmund Freud’s Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. In her paper On the Basis of Mother Love, presented to the society in 1911, she argued that the maternal instinct is not innate but can develop after birth, a theory Freud and the rest of her male colleagues rejected. Margarethe soon left the society and devoted much of her life to treating women in working class neighborhoods and advocating for their reproductive health. Her theory of maternal instinct remains controversial even today. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Dr. Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian-born biochemist, dedicated her life’s work to messenger RNA, which she always believed had the potential to change the world. After decades of being ignored, she persisted with the research that eventually revolutionized the field of medicine and enabled the development of lifesaving vaccines in record time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Karikó tells her story in her memoir, Breaking Through: My Life In Science, sharing her journey from young researcher in Hungary to Nobel Prize-winning biochemist.In this conversation, she reflects on the challenges and breakthroughs that defined her career, her resilience, and the scientific curiosity that fueled her passion for mRNA research Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

At this festive time of year, when many people are bringing trees into their homes to decorate for the holidays, we are going back to our story of a pioneering scientist who made it her mission to ensure that plants traveling across borders did not carry any diseases. It was in 1909, that the Mayor of Tokyo sent a gift of 2,000 prized cherry trees to Washington, D.C. But the iconic blossoms enjoyed each spring along the Tidal Basin are not from those trees. That’s because Flora Patterson, who was the Mycologist in Charge at the USDA, recognized the original saplings were infected, and the shipment was burned on the National Mall. In this episode, we explore  Patterson’s lasting impact on the field of mycology, starting with a blight that killed off the American chestnut trees, and how she helped make the USDA’s National Fungus Collection the largest in the world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Two female botanists – Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter – made headlines for riding the rapids of the Colorado River in 1938 in an effort to document the Grand Canyon’s plant life. In Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, author Melissa L. Sevigny retraces their journey and shows how the ambitious river expedition, one that many believed impossible for women, changed not only Clover and Jotter but also our understanding of botany in this remote corner of the American West. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Carolyn Beatrice Parker came from a family of doctors and academics and worked during World War II as a physicist on the Dayton Project, a critical part of the Manhattan Project tasked with producing polonium. (Polonium is a radioactive metal that was used in the production of early nuclear weapons.) After the war, Parker continued her research and her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but she died of leukemia at age 48 before she was able to defend her PhD thesis. Decades later, during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, citizens in her hometown of Gainesville, Florida voted to rename an elementary school in her honor. November 18th would have been her 107th birthday. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Anna Von Mertens' thoughtful new exploration of Henrietta Swan Leavitt's life describes and illuminates Leavitt's decades-long study of stars, including the groundbreaking system she developed for measuring vast distances within our universe simply by looking at photographic plates. Leavitt studied hundreds of thousands of stars captured on the glass plates at the Harvard College Observatory, where she worked as a human computer from the turn of the 20th century until her death in 1921. Von Mertens explores her life, the women she worked alongside, and her discoveries, weaving biography, science, and visual imagery into a rich tapestry that deepens our understanding of the universe and the power of focused, methodical attention. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Although initial clinical trials of tamoxifen as a treatment of breast cancer were positive, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) did not believe this market would be commercially viable. The company had hoped for a contraceptive pill – tamoxifen didn’t work for that – not a cancer treatment. In 1972 the higher-ups at ICI decided to cancel the research. But Dora Richardson, the chemist who had originally synthesized the compound, and her boss, Arthur Walpole, were convinced they were on to something important, something that could save lives. They continued the research in secret. Tamoxifen was eventually launched in the U.K. in 1973 and went on to become a global success, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Dora Richardson’s role in its development, however, was overshadowed by her a male colleague and all but forgotten. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the early 1960s, chemist Dr. Dora Richardson synthesized a chemical compound that became one of the most important drugs to treat breast cancer: tamoxifen. Although her name is on the original patent, her contributions have been lost to history. In the first episode of this two-part podcast, Katie Couric introduces us to Dora’s story. Lost Women of Science producer Marcy Thompson tracked down Dora’s firsthand account of the history of the drug’s development. This document, lost for decades, tells the story of how the compound was made and how Imperial Chemical Industries, where Richardson worked, almost terminated the project because the company was hoping to produce a contraceptive, not a cancer therapy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

While researching her book about thalidomide in America, Jennifer Vanderbes discovered that there were far more survivors in the U.S. than originally thought – at least ten times more. These survivors were born with shortened limbs and other serious medical conditions after their mothers unwittingly took thalidomide in the early 1960s in so-called clinical trials. Wonder Drug tells the story of Vanderbes’ trek across the U.S. in search of these thalidomide survivors. It also revisits the role of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration medical reviewer Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey – the subject of our recent five-part season – who refused to approve thalidomide for sale in the U.S. In the process of writing her book, Vanderbes became an advocate for the survivors, now in their sixties, and their search for justice and support.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s September 2024 and a group of American thalidomide survivors arrive in Washington D.C. to lobby the government for support. More than 60 years have gone by since Frances Kelsey first stalled the New Drug Approval application from pharma company Merrell for thalidomide. Although she stopped the drug from going on the market in the U.S., hundreds of pregnant women still took thalidomide in Merrell’s so-called clinical trials, and many had babies with shortened limbs and serious medical conditions. Others had miscarriages or stillborn babies. Here we look at the legacy of thalidomide, the changes in drug regulations in the wake of the scandal, and what happened to our hero, Frances Kelsey.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s the summer of 1962 and thalidomide has been off the market in Europe for months. But in the U.S., people are only just beginning to find out about the scandal. The Washington Post breaks the story and puts a picture of Frances Kelsey on the front page. She’s the hero who saved American lives. President John F. Kennedy gives her a medal and her image is splashed across newspapers around the country. At the end of the previous year, Merrell, the company that wanted to sell thalidomide in the U.S., had made a half-hearted attempt to contact some of the doctors who had been given millions of thalidomide samples for so-called clinical trials. Just how many pregnant women might have thalidomide in their medicine cabinets? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s 1961 and Widukind Lenz, a German pediatrician, is going door to door in his efforts to find out what is causing the epidemic of babies born with shortened limbs and other serious medical conditions. In the U.S., drug company Merrell is battling with Dr. Frances Kelsey at the Food and Drug Administration about the approval for thalidomide. She’s asking for data that shows it’s safe in pregnancy (spoiler alert: it’s not). Meanwhile, Merrell continues to send hundreds of thousands of thalidomide pills to doctors in so-called clinical trials. In November 1961, Dr. Lenz goes public with the results of his medical sleuthing and, as host Katie Hafner puts it, “the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s the early 1960s and the German pharmaceutical market is booming. A sedative called Contergan is one of the bestselling drugs. Contergan’s active ingredient is thalidomide and it is touted as a wonder drug, a non-addictive sedative safer than barbiturates. In the U.S., the drug is called Kevadon, and its distributor is impatient to get the drug on the market. But Dr. Frances Kelsey, a medical examiner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is stalling the approval of Kevadon. She wants more information from the manufacturer to prove it is safe. Meanwhile, doctors in Scotland and Australia are beginning to suspect thalidomide might, in fact, be very toxic. And in Germany, reports are beginning to emerge of a mysterious epidemic of babies born with missing limbs and other serious medical conditions, but doctors have no idea what's causing it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In this first chapter of a new five-part season we meet Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a physician and pharmacologist who joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a medical reviewer in 1960. Before the year is out, Dr. Kelsey finds herself standing up to big pharma. It’s September 1960 and a thick New Drug Application lands on Dr. Kelsey’s desk. The drug has already been on the market in Europe for three years and Dr. Kelsey’s supervisors expect her to rubber stamp the application. The drug is called Kevadon. Active ingredient: thalidomide. And to Frances Kelsey’s keen eye, something looks off. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the 1950s, a German drug company developed a new sedative that was supposed to be 100% safe: thalidomide. So safe, in fact, it was promoted to women as a treatment for morning sickness. It quickly became a bestseller. But in the early 1960s, shocking news started coming out of Europe. Thousands of babies were being born with shortened arms and legs, heart defects, and other serious problems. Many died. In the United States things were different, thanks to one principled, strong-minded skeptic who joined the Federal Drug Administration in 1960 as a medical reviewer. One of her first assignments was to review the approval application of that very wonder drug, thalidomide. But the application was, to her mind, flawed. Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey was a physician, a pharmacologist, and a nitpicker who refused to be intimidated by big pharma. Starting in September, a new five-part series from Lost Women of Science: The Devil in the Details, the story of Frances Oldham Kelsey, The Doctor Who Said No To Thalidomide.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the 1920s, when newspapers and magazines started to showcase stories about science, many of the early science journalists were women, working alongside their male colleagues despite less pay and outright misogyny. They were often single or divorced and, as Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette explains, writing for their lives. From Emma Reh, who traveled to Mexico to get a divorce and ended up trekking to archeological digs on horseback, to Jane Stafford, who took on taboo topics like sex and sexually transmitted diseases, they started a tradition of explaining science to non-scientists, accurately and with flair.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

By the second half of the 20th century, physicists were on a mission to find the ultimate building blocks of the universe. What you get when you zoom in all the way to the tiniest bits that can’t be broken down anymore. They had a kind of treasure map, a theory describing these building blocks and where we might find them. But to actually find them, physicists needed to recreate the blistering-hot conditions of the early universe, when many of these particles last existed. That’s why, in the mid-1970s, a major national laboratory entrusted Helen Edwards with a huge task: to oversee the design and construction of the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the first of a new generation of particle colliders built to uncover the inner workings of the universe.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Dr. Jess Wade is a physicist at Imperial College London who’s made it her mission to write and update the Wikipedia pages of as many women in STEM as she possibly can. She inspired us at Lost Women of Science to start our own Wikipedia project to ensure that all the female scientists we profile have accurate and complete Wikipedia pages. In this episode, Jess talks with us about what she does and why she does it.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices