Rose Epstein Frisch (July 7, 1918 – January 30, 2015) was a pioneering American scientist in fertility and human development whose work was instrumental in the discovery of

leptin Leptin (from Ancient Greek, Greek λεπτός ''leptos'', "thin" or "light" or "small") is a hormone predominantly made by adipose cells and enterocytes in the small intestine that helps to regulate Energy homeostasis, energy balance by inhib ...

. She is mainly known for her work in

infertility Infertility is the inability of a person, animal or plant to reproduce by natural means. It is usually not the natural state of a healthy adult, except notably among certain eusocial species (mostly haplodiploid insects). It is the normal state ...

; specifically the discovery that low body fat was a contributing factor to infertility.

Early life and education

She was born Rose Epstein in 1918, in the Bronx, to

Russian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

immigrants Louis and Stella Epstein. Her brother Lee Eastman (born Leopold Vail Epstein) is

Linda McCartney Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney ( Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, animal rights activist, vegetarian cookbook author and advocate, and entrepreneur. She was the keyboardist in th ...

's father.Pam Belluck, "Rose E. Frisch, Scientist Who Linked Body Fat to Fertility, Dies at 96"
''New York Times'', February 11, 2015; accessed September 25, 2018 Frisch attended

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an acade ...

, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in 1939. She earned her master's degree in zoology the following year at Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. She met her husband,

David H. Frisch David Henry Frisch (March 12, 1918 – May 23, 1991) was an American physicist who helped develop the atom bomb in World War II and later became active in the disarmament movement. He was also the husband of Rose Epstein Frisch. Biography Born ...

, while she was at Smith and he was at Princeton. The two worked on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the second World War.

Research

Focusing on the role of adipose tissue (fat) in fertility, Frisch discovered that low body fat (under 17%) could cause infertility, late

menarche Menarche ( ; ) is the first menstrual cycle, or first menstrual bleeding, in female humans. From both social and medical perspectives, it is often considered the central event of female puberty, as it signals the possibility of fertility. Gir ...

, and oligomenorrhea. This discovery was published in the journal ''Science'' in 1974. She also discovered that athletes were at lower risk of breast cancer. Frisch began her research career as a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, where she worked with '' Drosophila melanogaster''. After her doctorate, she became a human computer for the Manhattan Project. Once her children were older, she took a research position at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Frisch remained at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

for the rest of her career, studying swimmers, dancers, and other athletes to learn how body fat affects fertility and the propensity for diseases such as breast cancer. Until she passed, she was involved with the Cambridge-base
Center for Population and Development Studies
of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.Small, K. R., Rose Frisch, 1918-2015, posted February 12, 2015, accessed February 18, 2015
/ref>

Legacy

Frisch was widely respected by athletic women, who were often able to achieve a pregnancy in part by applying knowledge gathered from her research.

Honors and awards

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

– 1975–1976 * Sigma Xi national lecturer – 1988–1990 *Fellow of the Bunting Institute – 1993–1994 *Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences *Rally Day Medal for Medical Research and Reproductive Health (awarded by

) *Professor Emeritus Award of Merit, Harvard School of Public Health

Selected publications

* * * *Frisch, Rose E. Plants that Feed the World. (1966). Van Nostrand; First Edition (1966). ASIN: B0000CNBFC - children’s book on nutrition *Frisch, Rose E. (Ed.). Adipose Tissue and Reproduction (March 1990). S Karger Publishers. .

References

External links

Rose E. Frisch Papers, 1921-2014 (inclusive), 1970-2000 (bulk). H MS c455. Harvard Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frisch, Rose American women biologists 1918 births 2015 deaths Smith College alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard School of Public Health faculty 20th-century American women scientists American women academics 21st-century American women