Norma Ford Walker (September 3, 1893 – August 9, 1968) was a Canadian scientist who pioneered the development of

medical genetics Medical genetics is the branch tics in that human genetics is a field of scientific research that may or may not apply to medicine, while medical genetics refers to the application of genetics to medical care. For example, research on the caus ...

as a research field. Though she began her academic career as an entomologist, working as an invertebrate zoologist at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, she became interested in medical genetics in the 1930s, and researched the medical genetics of the then famous

Dionne Quintuplets The Dionne quintuplets (; born May 28, 1934) are the first quintuplets known to have survived their infancy. The identical girls were born just outside Callander, Ontario, near the village of Corbeil. All five survived to adulthood. The Dionn ...

. She was an original founding member of the

American Society of Human Genetics The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), founded in 1948, is a professional membership organization for specialists in human genetics. As of 2009, the organization had approximately 8,000 members. The Society's members include researchers, a ...

and between 1947 and 1962, was the first director of the Department of Genetics at what was then the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children. She was a strong advocate for women in science, and supervised many women would later become the first appointed department heads of

human genetics Human genetics is the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population gene ...

at many Canadian universities. Her academic career spanned six decades and she published prolifically in both human genetics and entomology. She was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Canada judges to have "made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life ...

in 1958.

Life and work

Norma Henrietta Carswell Ford was born September 3, 1893 at

St Thomas, Ontario St. Thomas is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada. It gained its city charter on March 4, 1881. The city is also the seat for Elgin County, although it is independent of the county. At the time of the 2021 Census, the population of the city wa ...

to Norman W. Ford and Margaret Henrietta Dyke She entered into a BA degree at the

in 1914 and completed her PhD in

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

there in 1923, under the supervision of

Edmund Murton Walker Edmund Murton Walker (October 5, 1877 – February 14, 1969) was a Canadian entomologist. He described the genus '' Grylloblatta'' in 1914 which he then considered as a member of the Orthoptera and later placed it in a separate order Grylloblatt ...

. In the late 1910s, prior to completing her PhD, she taught biology classes for women and throughout the 1920s she would give lectures on biology, health, and human genetics to various women's groups including the

Girl Guides Girl Guides (known as Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) is a worldwide movement, originally and largely still designed for girls and women only. The movement began in 1909 when girls requested to join the then-grassroot ...

. Her early work was in

invertebrate zoology Invertebrate zoology is the subdiscipline of zoology that consists of the study of invertebrates, animals without a backbone (a structure which is found only in fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). Invertebrates are a vast and very di ...

, and in addition to her thesis (completed in 1923), she published several papers on the physiology and behaviour of the Grylloblatteria and the

sarcophagid Sarcophagidae () are a family of flies commonly known as flesh flies. They differ from most flies in that they are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or op ...

fly, ''

Wohlfahrtia ''Wohlfahrtia'' is a genus of flesh flies in the family Sarcophagidae. There are at least 20 described species in ''Wohlfahrtia''. Species These 28 species belong to the genus ''Wohlfahrtia'': *'' Wohlfahrtia africana'' Verves, 1985 *'' Wohlfa ...

'' In 1937, she was co-

principal investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

on a study tasked with determining whether the

were truly genetically identical, and left entomology behind. In 1943, she married Edmund Walker. Between 1937 and her death she made many valuable contributions to the study of human genetics, and became a globally-renowned expert on multiple births. She was the first person to apply

dermatoglyphics Dermatoglyphics (from Ancient Greek ''derma'', "skin", and ''glyph'', "carving") is the scientific study of fingerprints, lines, mounts and shapes of hands, as distinct from the superficially similar pseudoscience of palmistry. Dermatoglyphics a ...

in the diagnosis of

Down syndrome Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...

. She taught

Oliver Smithies Oliver Smithies (23 June 1925 – 10 January 2017) was a British-American geneticist and physical biochemist. He is known for introducing starch as a medium for gel electrophoresis in 1955, and for the discovery, simultaneously with Mario Capec ...

genetics in her lab and with him, demonstrated that

haptoglobin Haptoglobin (abbreviated as Hp) is the protein that in humans is encoded by the ''HP'' gene. In blood plasma, haptoglobin binds with high affinity to ''free'' hemoglobin released from erythrocytes, and thereby inhibits its deleterious oxidative ...

types were inherited In 1966, she was awarded an honorary degree from

Queen's University, Kingston Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than of land throughout Ontario and owns Herstmonceux Castle in East Suss ...

for her scientific achievements.

References

External links

Norma Ford Walker archival papers
held at th
University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford Walker, Norma 1893 births 1968 deaths University of Toronto alumni Canadian entomologists Women entomologists Canadian geneticists Canadian women geneticists Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada 20th-century Canadian zoologists 20th-century Canadian women scientists