Through tables, statistics, and sphygmographic tracings, I proved that women were strong and agile throughout their monthly cycle. Today, you take it for granted that a woman can compete and work any day of the week. My essay “The Question of Rest for Women during Menstruation” was influential. Abraham Jacobi, who became known as the “father of American pediatrics.” Luckily, he advocated for my being admitted to medical societies of New York.
(Later, it became the Women’s Medical Association of New York City.) When I returned, I was so energized that I organized the Association of the Medical Education of Women in New York. But I wanted more and better training, which I did not believe the women’s medical schools in the US could provide, so I left for Paris, where, after much perseverance, I gained admission to the Ecole de Medicine.
My first chance to practice medicine came from another female graduate, Marie Zakrzewska, who founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children. You could call it sweet revenge when a woman-Ann Preston-took over his position and became the first woman dean of a medical school. In protest over the allowances made for me, the dean, a man, resigned. I had to convince the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania to let me sit for my medical exams early. I was born at a time when I needed to be critical-critical of a system and a society that excluded women from too many opportunities. Needless to say, if I were alive today, I would be very interested in the work of NCBI and delighted to see so many women excelling in my field. (It was former head of NCBI David Lipman who first said I was the mother and father of bioinformatics.) I was also delighted to contribute to the understanding of the evolutionary tree based on correlations between proteins and living organisms.Īt the time of my death, I was associate director of the National Biomedical Research Foundation and a professor of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Center, but I am perhaps best known as the founder of the field of bioinformatics. My work was used in genetic engineering and medical research. I foresaw genetic sequencing way before it became a key source of biological information.Īs a biochemist who developed compilations of protein structures, I introduced the single letter descriptions to facilitate computer analysis, established a large computer database of protein structures, and was the author of the Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure. Perhaps the more accurate word would be founder. But when it comes to my work, some people called me a mother and a father. We’re writing about them in first person as if they had access to today’s news. To celebrate, we’re profiling 12 women who were pioneers in the field of health and medicine-with a twist.
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