Alice Miles Woodruff (November 29, 1900 – November 24, 1985), born Alice Lincoln Miles, was an American virologist. She developed a method for growing fowlpox outside of a live chicken alongside Ernest William Goodpasture. Her research greatly facilitated the rapid advancement in the study of viruses.

Early life and education

Alice Lincoln Miles was born in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

, the daughter of Arthur L. Miles and Marie Augusta Putnam Miles. Her father was a dentist. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1922. She obtained a master's degree in 1924 and a PhD in 1925 from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

Career

Woodruff worked as a research assistant at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

from 1927 until 1931. While working with her husband and Goodpasture, she conducted studies in the "nature, infectivity, and purification of fowl-pox virus, and the character of the changes it induced on experimental infection of fowls," which became the forerunner in the cultivation of viruses. Woodruff was a regional chair of the

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...

in her later years.

Personal life

She married Charles Eugene ("Gene") Woodruff on 25 August 1927. They had three children together, Alice, Mary Jean, and Charles Eugene. She was widowed when her husband died in 1980; she died in Highland, Michigan, in 1985, aged 84 years.

Bibliography

References

Yale University alumni American virologists Mount Holyoke College alumni Vanderbilt University staff {{US-biologist-stub 1900 births 1985 deaths People from Cambridge, Massachusetts